article_snippet: Black offenders are also less likely to have Black offenders cases dismissed by a municipal judge and Black offenders are more likely to be taken into custody on outstanding warrants during traffic stops, compared to Black offenders white counterparts.
article_snippet: Ferguson's black residents are also more likely than others to be charged with relatively minor offenses like 'manner of walking in roadway' or 'failure to comply.
article_snippet: The U.S. Justice Department officials found from 2012 to 2014 that black motorists in Ferguson, Missouri, were more than twice as likely as whites to be searched in traffic stops, even though whites were 26 per cent less likely to be found carrying contraband.
article_snippet: African-Americans were 68 per cent less likely than others to have African-Americans cases dismissed by a municipal court judge.
article_snippet: Overall, African Americans make up 67 per cent of the population of Ferguson, about 10 miles north of downtown St. Louis.
article_snippet: The taxpayers have been paying for that racial bias.'
article_snippet: The official said that in Ferguson's court system, African-Americans were less likely to have African-Americans cases dismissed by a municipal judge and made up 95 percent of people held longer than two days in the Ferguson jail.
article_snippet: The Ferguson Municipal Court, which Attorney General Eric Holder has previously criticized for unfairly penalizing the city's poor, issued the majority of the city warrants for minor violations such as parking, traffic and housing code violations.
article_snippet: A separate report to be issued soon also will accuse the St Louis suburb of putting profit over public safety in violation of the 14th Amendment's due process clause by collecting heavy fines from low-income residents.
article_snippet: Since 2010, according to the federal agency, Ferguson courts have raked in more than $442,000 in fines for failure to appear, which amounted to a quarter of the court's annual revenue, reported the St Louis Post Dispatch.
article_snippet: The onerous 'failure to appear' charge, which disproportionately affected those living close to and below the poverty line, was dropped by the city in September.