A New Form Of Convict Leasing

Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, explained how our treatment of criminals has created a new racial caste system, and the only way to make change is by massive social change and Civil Rights movement. The criminal laws often focus on psychoactive drugs used by the minority populations. Minorities are disproportionately targeted, arrested, and punished for drug offenses. For instance, Black, Latino, Native American, and many Asian were portrayed as violent, traffickers of drugs and a danger to society. Surveillance was focused on communities of color, also immigrants, the unemployed, the undereducated, and the homeless, who continue to be the main targets of law enforcement efforts to fight the war on drugs. Although African Americans comprise only 12.2 percent of the population and 13 percent of drug users, they make up 38 percent of those arrested for drug offenses and 59 percent of those convicted of drug offenses causing critics to call the war on drugs the “New Jim Crow”(drug policy). The drug

After getting the public support for his campaign, America saw an unprecedented rise in its incarceration rate, particularly among African Americans. The “ War on Drugs ” has had a disparate impact on the black community even though blacks and whites use drugs at approximately the same levels. This is achieved through a myriad of formal and informal practices. African-Americans are targeted and prosecuted at a much higher rate even though they are not statistically any likelier to abuse or sell drugs than the white population.

Throughout history, the drug war has always targeted minority groups. “At the root of the drug-prohibition movement in the United States is race, which is the driving force behind the first laws criminalizing drug use, which first appeared as early as the 1870s (Cohen, 56)”. There were many drug laws that targeted minority groups such as the marijuana ban of 1930s that criminalized Mexican migrant farm workers and in the Jim Crow South, reformist wanted to wage war on the Negro cocaine feign so they used African Americans as a scapegoat while they overlooked southern white women who were a bigger problem for the drug epidemic (Cohen, 57). Instead of tackling the root of the drug problem they passed the blame to struggling minority groups within the United States.

This brings up the question; do blacks use drugs more than whites? Contrary to public belief, the higher arrest rates of black drug offenders do not reflect higher rates of drug law violations. Whites, actually, commit more drug crimes than blacks. “By 1988, with national anti-drug efforts in full force, blacks were arrested on drug charges at five times the rate of whites. Statistical as well as anecdotal evidence indicate drug possession and drug selling cut across all racial, socio-economic and geographic lines. But, because drug law enforcement resources have been concentrated in low-income, predominantly minority urban areas, drug offending whites

This article talks about race, drugs and policing, and understanding the disparities in drug delivery arrests and argues that race shapes perceptions of whom and what constitutes Seattle’s drug problem, and how the police response to that problem. The findings suggest that the blacks are significantly more in numbers among Seattle’s drug delivery arrestees compared to whites. The primary cause behind this racial disparity is due to the fact that police focus mainly on crack dealers who are predominantly blacks more than any other serious drug dealers. The evidence states that even though a majority of serious drug transactions involved a white drug dealer, 64 percent of those arrested for drug delivery in Seattle from January 1999 to April 2001 were black. It also indicates that police’s excessive focus on crack offenders resulted in the exclusion of those who delivered other sorts of serious drugs like heroin and methamphetamines. Blacks arrested indoors also outnumbered whites by a ratio of 2 to 1, although evidence suggests that the whites were more involved in the delivery of methamphetamine, ecstasy, and heroin and had substantial access to private spaces when compared to blacks. There is also evidence saying that racially diverse outdoor drug venues located downtown received far more attention than did predominantly white outdoor drug markets. The paper finally concludes by saying that the whites have long been protected from the threat of detection and sanction, and

Consequently, policies regarding drugs are decidedly pertinent in the issue of such racial disparity. While it has been found that drug use among races is relatively similar, African Americans are four times more likely to be arrested for drug offenses than whites and are two and half times more likely to be arrested for drug possession

The war on drugs then shifted focus and targeted minorities as the causes of crime, and used drugs as a mechanism to maintain unjust policing. The author addresses several statistical figures pointing out the United States as having the highest incarceration rates in the world, and the majority of those incarcerated being minorities incarcerated for simple drug crimes. The author also quotes another author who points out that when the war on drugs was declared there was not a drug crisis, however, with the support of media and politicians the war was pushed for and targeted minorities. In targeting minority groups the article also describes how minorities that were targeted suffered a mental imprisonment. This mental imprisonment is also perpetuated through the stereotypes of the “Criminal black man,” that currently marginalizes minorities in our current

Well-known writer, Jamie Fellner in her essay, Race, Drugs, and Law Enforcement in the United States, laments the discrimination that African Americans suffer when it comes to drugs. Fellner’s purpose is to make awareness to the readers of the predigestion against african americans when it has to do with crimes. Fellner effectively uses logos,ethos, and pathos to successfully convey to the audience that current discrimination towards African Americans comes from law enforcement.

Figures show that in 2006/07 the arrest rate for blacks was 3.6 times the rate for whites. By contrast, once arrested, black and Asians were less likely tan white to

“The United States imprisons a larger percentage of its black population than South Africa did at the height of apartheid. In Washington, D.C., our nation’s capitol, it is estimated that three out of four young black men (and nearly all those in the poorest neighborhoods) can expect to serve time in prison” (Alexander, 2012). The numbers tell the story better than words can: black people are more likely to go to prison than any other race in the United States, shown by the fact that more than 60% of the prison population is composed of people of color (The Sentencing Project, 2016). These statistics can be traced back to several different cause, including the Era of Jim Crow and the War on Drugs, both of which led to higher policing in minority areas.

In 2015, in the US, 2.3 million people were incarcerated. Of that population, nearly one million were African American. According to the NAACP, thirty-two percent of those arrested for drug-related crimes in the US are African Americans while only twelve percent of drug users are African American. This would indicate that the idea that the United States is a post racial nation is incorrect.

The convict leasing system contain about 90% of black people as if barely no white men or women were breaking laws. The percentage of blacks was so high, because of the “Pig Laws”. Those laws had been used to target and accuse many blacks for supposedly owning money, stealing a pig, or not being able to keep a job that they were often restricted from. I don’t understand how those broken laws could had even be remotely compared to true felons that are murderers. If somebody was in the system of convicts it was even worse than the known slavery. The system was brutal that whipped, killed, hardly fed, mentally, and physically abused these people. They were even easier to replace, because of so many black people being thrown into the system. Making

are black or Hispanic, 61 percent” (“Drug War Statistics”2014). This ongoing drug war is not the

Their first point in their favor is that while police and other law enforcement agencies are trying to enforce drug laws, minorities are disproportionately targeted. They say that minorities, especially African American males, are subject to arrest more often, are incarcerated at a higher rate and serve longer sentences in prison (“Against”, 2017). Law enforcement tends to enforce drug laws in areas that have been determined to be “high crime” and often, these areas are predominately African American communities. As the population of cities, especially the inner-city, continue to grow over time, the number of people imprisoned for drug offenses will continue to rise (“Against”, 2017).

Data shows that people of color were targeted and arrested on suspicion of drug use at higher rates than whites, leading to higher incarceration rates among communities of color. Despite nearly equal usage rates, blacks are almost 3.73 times more likely than whites to be arrested for marijuana. The social advantage of the powerful leave the poor in an uphill battle. Most drug related crimes are non-violent, however hold a felony penalty. Those convicted of a felony are stripped from their right to vote and limited to housing and jobs. In a means to get ahead, recidivism perpetuates. People convicted of drug charges are segregated to the lower class. In the twentieth century ethnocentrism continues to be rampant, influenced by power, not