Across the country, people are being falsely charged with drug offenses due to the increasing use of field drug tests from legal enforcement. Northampton is no exception, with 87% of those accused of drug crimes cleared on false charges in 2023.
Field drug testing is a method of chemically testing drugs, requiring officers to use presumptive identification to send substances to a lab. According to a UPenn study, they found field drug testing is one of largest known factors to wrongful arrests and convictions, falsely accusing 30,000 Americans yearly. “Presumptive field drug test kits are known to produce ‘false positive’ errors and were never designed or intended to provide conclusive evidence of the presence of drugs,” says Ross Miller, author of the report.
The tests are highly sensitive to human error when storing, handling, and evaluating the chemicals and substances, as potential drugs are found based on color. “The resulting color must be subjectively interpreted by police officers, who often lack standardized training and protocols to assist them,” stated the UPenn report.
In 2023, 47 people were cleared out of the 54 Northampton police arrested on drug crimes. With this pattern of majority wrongful arrests and limited convictions, police are investing significant time and resources into crimes that did not occur and on erroneous field testing.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology argues presumptive field tests provide an efficient way for police to quickly and safely test suspicious contents without doing so directly. Yet, the report found a 32% false positive rate in cannabis field testing in the Massachusetts State Department, and the Massachusetts Department of Corrections themselves noted a 38% rate.
In 2018, the John Hopkins School of Public Health did a study investigating the costs of simple drug possession crimes in Baltimore City. They found the cost to the city per individual arrested was an average of $3,600, and with trial, the cost was an average of $6,000.
While overall spending may vary in Massachusetts and based on population, Northampton is investing thousands of dollars into each individual’s arrests. From the data in the crime overview of 2023, the city could have spent up to an average of $174,000 in the year for wrongful drug arrests. Northampton police receive majority funding from local taxes paid for by residents in the city, meaning resident income is going towards the false arrests and accusations for drug possession crimes.
Northampton’s drug field tests are sent to UMass Digital Forensics Laboratory. In 2012-14, Massachusetts chemists Sonja Farak in Northampton and Annie Dookhan in Boston, were charged for misconduct, tampering and stealing from drug tests. Because of Farak and Dookhan’s misconduct, thousands of people were falsely convicted for low-level crimes and some already finished their sentences before the chemists were exposed. Matthew Segal, the legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, said to the Washington Post, “it’s not just about two chemists, it’s about an entire system that allowed this to happen, and once it did happen didn’t take steps to remedy it.”
The increasing false drug arrests, and misconduct in Massachusetts testing labs tells a larger story about the implications of error-prone field testing, and a systemic issue in Northampton. A push towards reforming drug fielding techniques could bridge these large errors and ensure funds are directed towards necessary efforts, instead of inaccurate ones, experts imply.