Detroit Fratricide Analysis

These issues of social control all work singularly and in tandem with each other to create a system where the young boys in Oakland mostly become self-fulfilled prophecies of criminals, drop outs, or gang members. Even I, despite my white

Robberies, violence and drug-dealing transgressions are a constant fear of many. The decent families although opposed to the norms of the ghetto, encourage their children to understand and respect the code of the streets in an effort to protect themselves. Also, many youths in the inner-cities try to behave as others within their sub-culture. A child might dress or speak a certain way that a race is labeled to be standard to fit in. For example, a Caucasian individual may dress in baggy clothes and speak in slang in public to imitate what people label the African American youth to be uniform. However, this individual in some instances could act completely different at home or in other environments such as family gatherings or church.

The facts speak for themselves, people of color are the enemies and targets in the war on drugs. They also tell us that fighting back is useless due to the racial bias that is inherent in the criminal justice system. This might come as a surprise to the majority that believe discrimination is no longer in existence, considering that it is a black man living in the White House. Ever since Barack Obama pledged to serve as the forty-fourth president

The term “War on Drugs” was first used by the Nixon administration in the 1970’s, but the country has been enforcing policies against drug use, possession, and distribution since 1914, with the passing of the Harrison Act. They do this mainly through deterrence. The government makes laws and regulations against this kind of behavior and

The greatest problem that the society faces in the inner city black community is the interpersonal violence and aggression created by the troubled youth in their society. By simply living in this kind of violent, innocent people are affected by crimes such as burglaries, carnapping and drug related incident and shootings.

The documentary, The House I Live in, explains how drug use is a social problem and gives statists on whether the war on drugs is effective or not. Some say the war on drugs is very effective and it helping with society, others believe the total opposite that the war on drugs has no effect on society. Since 1971, the rate of illegal drug use has remained unchanged, but with that being said the war on drugs has resulted in more than forty-five million arrests. The war on drugs has cost over one trillion dollars so far to run. This makes many people believe that it is a waste of tax money. When Nixon was president, he compromised two-thirds of his budget to fund treatments and rehabilitation centers instead of putting money directly into law enforcement. During the time, the rehabilitation programs were working miracles. The programs kept many individuals from going back to jail and most importantly helped them stay away from drugs. These programs did not last long because the resources to keep the programs running became scarce. Taxpayers also did not like the programs, many rather pay for individuals who are doing drugs to be placed behind bars. Not only does the war on drugs have many positive contributions that come along with it; but it also has an equal amount of negatives. Therefore, the war on drugs is a running epidemic. The effectiveness of the war on drugs is unchangeable due to the targeting of class and race, police officers unwillingness to change drug

Several surveys conducted have concluded that whites are more likely than African Americans to have used drugs. Yet, 45% of drug related prisoners are African Americans and 30% are whites. Evidence has shown police tend to go into low-income minority neighborhoods thats where most of their arrest take place. In 1986 and 1987 President Reagan signed laws that created long mandatory minimum sentences for possessions of small amounts of crack cocaine, leading to the largest imprisonment in American history. The war on drugs is a term popularized by President Richard Nixon and applied to a campaign of drug prohibition. On June 18, 1971, Nixon declared drug abuse as “America’s number one enemy.” President Nixon wanted to devote federal resources for prevention of “new addicts and rehabilitation of addict.” However, given that he was running for re-election, he knew that approach would not sound appealing to most Americans and dedicated his campaign to the “war on

I am very surprised that we still live in a society that discriminates people of color and people of lesser wealth. Even though people of color represent only a small percentage of the community, they are ninety percent of prison population. It came to the point that there was overpopulation in some jails. And the funny thing is (not really funny though) the mass imprisonment of one time offenders affects both families and future generation. Those future generations are then most likely to believe that drugs are their only path and thus resort to them. So ironically, the effort to imprison people for drugs is most likely fostering future generations to resort to drugs. All in all the War on Drugs is a disappointing development that could have been resolved with a better plan and with the realization that drugs are the problem and the users/dealers are the

What started this so called “War on Drugs,” and why was it started? Drugs were first known to be used recreationally in the early nineteenth century. The drug most widely used then was marijuana, which before the Civil War was a major source of income for farmers in America (Casa Palmera). It wasn’t until 1971 that a “war” against drugs was started by President Nixon (DPA), when he stated that drugs were, “public enemy number one in America” (WBGU PBS). He held the belief that in order to stop the increase in use of drugs, it was, as he stated, “necessary to wage a new, all-out offensive” (Stanford University). This seemed like a great idea at the time, but since then, new drugs have been developing every day, while the old laws stay in place.

In 1971, Richard Nixon declared a war against drugs. Today, it still continues to be a huge failure, leading to mass incarceration in the U.S., corruption, violence and human rights abuses across the world. The DEA, or Drug Enforcement Administration, focuses on eliminating the supply of drugs and incarcerating drug traffickers. This strategy is inefficient because of supply and demand. If one attempts to eliminate the supply, then new ways will be found or new producers will produce due to demand. An example would be crystal meth. the U.S. government tried to stop crystal meth’s production by outlawing or regulating the sales of chemicals required to make it (“Controlled Substances Act”). In response, thousands of small-scale meth production labs popped up using unregulated chemicals. The U.S. then regulated those chemicals, which then only let the cartel, of whom have more experience and skill, to take over. With a less than 1% success rate, the DEA is still being funded around 30 billion dollars (Performance Budget). The reason most of the drugs in the U.S. are illegal are due to racist ties, this includes heroin (opium), marijuana, and cocaine. The U.S. should end the war on drugs and instead focus on the rehabilitation and discharge of drug abusers, users and dealers.

There also another war drugs in which law enforcement officials battle between egoistic hedonism and noble-cause corruption (Williams & Arrigo, 2012). It was President Ronald Reagan who signed the Federal Anti-Drug Abuse Act in 1986, which targeted crack cocaine over powder cocaine that was commonly used in the poor black urban communities. The regulation introduced an extreme sentencing disparity for crack cocaine over powder cocaine, and also authorized more resources towards law enforcement. Today’s significant levels of racialized prison populations are due to the concentrated anti-drug initiatives that were launched in neighborhoods of color and along the U.S.-Mexico border. Since Reagan took office in 1980 to 1990’s, there has been an increase of eleven hundred percent (1,100%) or one-half million residents imprisoned for drug offenses. Most of the individuals who are being detained are for drug possession charges rather than drug dealing (Bender, 2013). From a personal perspective working in law enforcement for the past eleven years, the individuals advancing from the war on drugs is the traffickers and law enforcement. It is not the users of the persons who possess the drugs because they are the vast majority currently

One main cause is drugs being a big use and huge demand in the inner city.(Detroit: The Last Days) “Law and order has completely broken down in the inner city, drugs and prostitution are rampant and unless you actually murder someone the police will leave you alone”(Detroit: The Last Days). Drugs were brought into the Detroit city very early and have never left; in fact the problem has just gotten worse. Many in the inner city turn to drugs either for money or to ease the pain of their problem lives. These people think it will help but instead it is causing more problems instead of helping. Therefore it keeps going, many young children now days are getting involved younger and younger because they are forced to believe it is the only way of survival in such a corrupt environment like the projects in Detroit. If drugs stay such a constant problem Detroit will have a harder time getting back to its true roots.

The war on drugs has been declared so many times against the background of understanding. The US government conducted a study in which they did the cost benefit analysis of various ways of treating the drug problem, to find out the most cost effective way. They found not to my surprise is that the most cost effective is prevention and treatment. This is the way one of the worst drugs, tobacco, was handled in the past. Tobacco kills far more people than hard drugs like cocaine does and was handled by cultural change. Through the 1980s people with more education adopted a healthier lifestyle and stopped smoking. There was

Since 1971, one trillion dollars have been poured into the War on Drugs. While this is more than enough money to provide the resources necessary to at least put a dent in the supply and demand for drugs, it has produced relatively no positive results. Instead, it has produced racial disparities throughout the entire country. Although white people abuse drugs at a rate that significantly higher than the abuse rates of African Americans, African Americans are arrested at a rate that is ten times higher than that of their white counterparts (Gupta). Many have begun to question if this war is against drugs, or people of color. It seems as if everybody is aware of the racial bias except the elected officials. In March of 2016, a twenty-two year old interview with President Nixon’s domestic policy chief John Ehrlichman was discovered. In the interview, he said that Nixon created the War on Drugs as a way to politically fight African Americans and hippies (Lobianco). In the interview, Ehrlichman states, “You understand what I 'm saying? We knew we couldn 't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities” (LoBianco).

The War on Drugs was started by the Nixon Administration in the early 70’s. President Nixon said that drugs were “Public Enemy Number One” and did everything in his power to made the War on Drugs seem to be a moral crusade to better the country, when in reality, it was to increase his power and allow for systematic oppression without blatantly making it about race. A former head of the Nixon Administration admitted this in an interview. He stated that the largest enemies of their administration was the “anti-war left and the black people...” and he went on to say “We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”. Although the fact that a government official admitted that the war on drugs was a farce to suppress minorities, nothing has changed. For example, cannabis is the english word for what is commonly known as marijuana, but after it was illegalize the government decided that they would use the spanish word for it, in order to “mexicanize it”. They purposely changed the name of a word so that it would be associated with mexican immigrants, so that they too could be oppressed. Despite that the overwhelming majority of cannabis users are whites, the majority of people serving jail