Drug Offenders In Prison Research

There are too many people in prison in our country and any people in prison today are non-violent drug offenders. The American war on drugs has targeted people in poverty and minorities, who are more likely to be involved in drug use. This has created a pattern of crime and incarceration and “...[a] connection between increased prison rates and lower crime is tenuous and small.” (Wyler). The prison system in our country today focuses on punishment for the inmates rather than rehabilitation for life after their release.

Critics argue that legalization of certain drugs will not end the drug war and that instead, it will cause more violence and issues for the county’s well being. In the mid-1980’s the cocaine epidemic hit and a large amount of crime, deaths from overdoses and violence came with it. The result of this was laws being placed with minimum punishment for drug trafficking to attempt to control the issue. Throughout the early 1990s crime started to slowly decrease and in 2013 the amount of crime was reduced in half. One viewpoint is that once the title of being non-violent labeled drug traffickers crime started to rise anew. Some crimes included murders of innocent bystanders and more drug flow into the U.S (Cook1). William J. Bennett and John P. Walters, Boston Globe writers, complicate matters further when they write “For 25 years before President Obama, U.S policy confronted drug

Since Nixon and Reagan started the war on drugs the United States have struggled to keep a drug policy that would actually keep people from using drugs. The war on drugs was something that change the history of this country, by making drug trafficking their main priority. This is becoming a big issue since this issue is something that many Americans do everyday. During the time in 1971, President Richard Nixon was the man that created the Drug Enforcement Agency. This was the program called the war in drugs. This was supposed to keep narcotics out within our country and our borders. During 1994, the war on drugs caused people to go to jail, especially the non violent drug users. Criminalization is overcrowding the prisons by putting people

One in three African-American males will go to prison in their lifetime, they constitute nearly 1 million of the total 2.3 million imprisoned population, and this is not simply because they commit more crimes than other racial groups. African-Americans drug offenders are 20% more likely of being sentenced to prison than white drug offenders, whilst Hispanics has a 40% greater chance of being sentenced. African-Americans make up 12% of the nation’s drug users, but represent 34% of those arrested for drug offenses, and 45% of those in state prison for such offense as of 2005.

First and foremost, in order to produce and educated opinion on the possibility of the over-incarceration of drug-offenders, we must first analyze the laws that land individuals in prison. In the early and mid-1970s the crime rate was skyrocketing, people were being murdered, and mothers were neglecting their children in order indulge in drugs. The primary culprit for the erratic behavior was crack-cocaine. The drug swept the streets as a more affordable substitute for powered cocaine that could be smoked instead of injected; the only difference between the two was the addition of baking soda, water, and heat from a stove or microwave. The ingenious combination of cocaine and household chemicals gave birth to a narcotic that the government

Have you heard the phrase "prisons are over populated!"? Statistics show 21.2% of low level drug offenders, that are incarcerated, do not have any current or prior violence in their records, no involvement in sophisticated criminal activity and no prior commitment. (USDOJ) Could this be the problem of prisons being over populated? There are many factors that need to be considered when looking for other possible methods of dealing with non-violent drug offenders. Some lawmakers believe the only way to deal with these offenders is to lock them up for long periods of time, while other feel the solution lies within treatment facilities and expanded social programs. With both sides having valid points we must then evaluate what is the

Restorative justice helps offenders realize how the crime impacts everyone not just themselves. The programs and exercises help offenders develop empathy through experiences. Another important effect that is learned is that how childhood trauma and abuse can explain how those experiences may have impacted their personal psychology, and they can develop skills like emotional regulation and anger/stress

Drug offenders are one of the fasting growing populations in federal prisons. Drug offenders constitute up to nearly half of the federal prison population (Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2015). They constitute, by far, the largest percentage of the population with the second highest offense being weapons, explosives, and arson at a mere 16.1% of the federal prison population (Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2015). In a 1971 press conference, President Richard Nixon labeled drug abuse “public enemy number one in the United States,” which the media shortly termed the “War on Drugs” (Public Broadcasting Service, 2014). In a measure to combat the War on Drugs, President Nixon implemented mandatory sentencing (Drug Policy Alliance, 2015). Mandatory

Another major subset in the overall prison population in the U.S. is the growing rise in incarceration rates of drug offenders. Professor Blumstein notes that when considering the growth of incarceration rates by specific type of crime, such as murder, robbery, assault, burglary, drugs, and sex offenses during the two decades from 1980 to 2001, the single most important result was that the prison rate for drug offenders increased by a factor of 10; moreover, these drug offenders currently account for the largest percentage of both state and federal prison populations (Blumstein, 2011).

Each president makes decisions based on their understanding of the people’s behalf. The reduction of prisoner’s main goal was to save taxpayer dollars, and to reduce the growth of prisons, since they are being overcrowded. Those prisoners who Obama had given commuting sentences are intimately considered nonviolent drug offenders. Therefore, I truly believe that these pardons are appropriate and do not lack any executive authority abuse. From my point of view, non-violent offenders should not be stuck in prison serving life sentences, as opposed to those violent criminals. Criminals such as murderers, rapists, and violent offenders. Those mentioned above are irresponsible people, whom the executive law should be focused on designing life sentences

Dangerous illegal drugs have plagued American citizens and their youth for as long as the country has been in existence. These harmful drugs are not only responsible for countless amounts of deaths, but the corruption of the American society in general. All too many times have these drugs been blamed for insanity, racism, rebellion, and straight up violence. Today the government is spending approximately $19.179 billion in one year to combat these evils (Gifford). Unfortunately, even with all of this effort going in to stop illegal drug use, the “War on Drugs” is yet to produce almost any positive results. Because of this, politicians are urging the government to spend even more money to combat the seemingly

Is Prohibition actually successful in reducing recreational drug consumption and drug-related violence? This is the question that will be analyzed in this paper. Drug enforcement officials frequently cite drug-related violence as a reason that drugs must be eliminated from our society. A contrary belief is that the system of drug prohibition actually causes most of the violence. Just like with alcohol prohibition in the 1920s and the rise of organized crime, drug prohibition inspires a dangerous underground market that manifests itself with violent crime throughout the U.S. and, in fact, the

If risk factors are fixed and stable across time and assuming no will power or morality is involved then no. We, as a society, do not have the right to incarcerate repeated drug offenders. For instance, assuming this fact were true, that would mean that drug offenders have basically been programmed to use drugs. Meaning that a child with parents of drug users would become a drug abuser as well, without the child’s will. Putting someone in prison for something they have no control over would not be right nor would it make sense since they would just continue to be drug users.

The article written by Dabney and Hollinger speaks on pharmaceutical abuses and therapeutic self-medicators. These offenses can be broken down into 4 subgroups that give the framework to a specific crime; behavioral, cognitive, the criminal sub-culture, and societies reaction to the crime.

The “War on Drugs” is the name given to the battle of prohibition that the United States has been fighting for over forty years. And it has been America’s longest war. The “war” was officially declared by President Richard Nixon in the 1970’s due to the abuse of illegitimate drugs. Nixon claimed it as “public enemy number one” and enacted laws to fight the importation of narcotics. The United States’ War on Drugs began in response to cocaine trafficking in the late 1980’s. As the war continues to go on, winning it hardly seems feasible. As stated by NewsHour, the National Office of Drug Control Policy spends approximately nineteen billion dollars a year trying to stop the drug trade. The expenses shoot up, indirectly, through crime,