In The Review “Drug Use, Drug Possession Arrests, And The

Though society consistently believes that African Americans possess and utilize drugs at a higher rate than white individuals, and are therefore more involved in petty crimes, this master narrative is incorrect. In a study published by the National Institute on Drug Abuse in 2000, results displayed that, “white students use cocaine at seven times the rate of black students, use crack cocaine at eight times the rate of black students, and use heroin at seven times the rate of black students” (Alexander 78). Despite the fact that white students use more drugs when compared to black students, “1 in every 14 black men was behind bars in 2006,” which represents “a rate...more than thirteen times higher than white men” (Alexander 79). Since African Americans are jailed more for drug abuse than white individuals, even though white individuals use and sell drugs more frequently, this suggests that African Americans have essentially become criminalized, or a primary target for police officials. Although the Fourth Amendment protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures, police officials still possess the right to search anyone that they believe appears suspicious as long as it is done with “probable cause,” or on reasonable grounds. This right is granted to officials so that they can use their judgement to protect society efficiently; however, policemen often abuse this

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

Thus, no matter what quantity (usage of drugs) will go down (Q2). The direction in which the price moves depends on which shift is larger. It has been shown that price will most likely go up; the reason for this is because law enforcement often goes after the suppliers with more effort than they go after the buyers because it has a greater deterrent effect because it is harder to sell than buy (Hellman and Alper). Also the punishments for sellers are much worse than for buyers. Therefore, the leftward shift of the supply schedule (S2), caused by the decrease in supply, is much larger than the shift in the demand schedule (D2); this causes a larger decrease in supply than in demand (area between S1 and S2 is larger) which then causes the increase in price from P1 to P2 (Graph A) (Miller). The increase in helps explain why drug offenders commit more property crime when drugs are illegal. Most property crimes are committed for financial motives; it is then safe to assume that drug offenders steal the property for money to buy drugs and to pay off all of the costs mentioned above. Violent crime can be explained through the use of drug selling gangs. The gangs fight over selling territory. The gang leaders can be seen as entrepreneurs and it is in their best interest to maximize profit. To do this they must lower competition and fight rival gangs to drive them out of their

In 1950, 70 percent of whites were imprisoned and in 1990 it flipped to 70 percent of African Americans and Latinos imprisoned. In 2008 a study showed that 68 percent of those in prison were African Americans and among drug offenders who were released, 92 percent were black (Vogel, 2016). Nearly 14 million whites and approximately 2.6 million African Americans report using an illicit drug (Criminal, 2016). In 1980 whites were more likely to sell drugs than blacks by 45 percent. In 2012, 6.6 percent of whites sold drugs compared to just 5 percent of blacks. However, blacks are 3.6 times more likely than whites to be arrested for selling drugs and 2.5 times more likely to be arrested for possession of drugs. (Rothwell, 2014). Blacks make up 12 percent of the total population of drug users, but 38 percent are arrested for drug offenses. African Americans essentially serve as much time for drug offenses as whites do for violent offenses. Yet blacks are incarcerated at six times the rate of whites (Criminal, 2016). “Jerome Miller analyzed arrest statistics from several American cities to determine the impact of the War on Drugs on policing. He found striking racial disparities in how drug arrests were made. In many jurisdictions, African American men account for over eighty percent of total drug arrests. In

Addressing Racial Disparities in Incarceration by Marc Mauer describes the current trends and impact of mass incarceration on colored communities. He precisely focuses on how the criminal justice system contributes to racial disparity within these communities and what changes need to be made to terminate the problem. Mauer explains that communities have very skewed ideas of how their criminal justice system works and that continues to divide the country based on race (2011, p. 88S). Mauer provides examples of racial bias in the three main pit stops of the criminal justice system starting with the officer who makes the arrest, followed by prosecution and finally the sentencing. Law enforcement officers frequently include implicit bias in regards to arrests and public policy decision, especially drug arrests, systematically

Alexander highlights the fact that these statistics contradict the fact that drugs are used and sold at similar rates among different races and that white youth are actually more likely to engage in drug related activity than any other age and racial group. Although the official line is that the increased rates of African Americans arrested for drug charges is due to an increase in crime rates, this has not been seen in the incarceration rates for

Numbers suggest that, for instance, while Blacks compose six percent of population in St. Clayton city, they represent 57% of overall police arrests. Similarly, the probability of Black arrest in Berkeley (CA) and Madison (Wis) cities is nine times higher than other racial groups compared to their corresponding population. In addition to this, Bureau of Justice statistics report that at the national level, Blacks are two times more likely to be arrested compared to Whites. Concurring with media reports and national statistics institutes’ estimates, empirical studies also report high proportion of minority arrests compared to their representation in the population (Golub, Johnson, & Dunlap, 2007).

“Forget the rhetoric: the evidence shows the NYPD's policy is not about stopping violent crime, but racking up arrests for non-violent drug offenses. While New York should immediately put a stop to its illegal practice of stopping and frisking anyone with a complexion a shade darker than Celine Dion, don't kid yourself: only when the U.S. ends its insane devotion to the war on drugs will we ever be able to effectively address the racist impacts of the criminal justice system.” (Davis, 2010)

African Americans constitute 12% of the U.S. population, 13% of the drug using population and fully 74% of the people sent to prison for drug possession. Studies have shown that minorities are subject to disparate treatment at arrest, bail, charging, plea bargaining, trial, sentencing, and every other stage of the criminal process. These disparities accumulate so that African Americans are represented in prison at seven times their rate in the general population; rates of crime in African American communities is often high, but not high enough to justify the disparity. The resentment destabilizes communities and demeans the entire nation. (Justice, 2004)

Racial profiling and the war on drugs play an huge role on the minority incarceration rate. According to the race and the war on drugs article “one in three black men between the ages of 20 and 29 are currently either or probation , parole or in prison.In seven states between 80% and 90% of prisoners serving time for drug offenses are black “(Fateman Gunja ). In 1973 a mandate from the public started “ get tough on crime” This started

A racial hierarchy exists relating to blacks and the criminal justice system in the subject of drug abuse arrests and convictions. Government research according to The Sentencing Project (2011) has shown that drug use among blacks is no higher than use among whites but yet seventy-nine percent of drug defendants in 2011were black. The participants in the criminal justice system such as police, judges, lawyers and corrections officers may be part of a dominant group and use their ethnocentrism to create bias and discrimination based on cultural differences. There is the overt bias and prejudice that an urban area with large black and minority populations is crime ridden. This in turn is cause for over policing with arrests of blacks more often in open air drug markets. A study done by Katherine Beckett (2006) in Seattle showed the disparity between white and black drug dealers in different ethnographic

The drug war is racially defined, and that is why there is a huge number of African-Americans and Latinos in prisons and jails all across the country. The rate of incarceration for African American drug offenders dwarfs the rate of whites. Even though whites make up the majority of illegal drug users, three-fourths of the people who are imprisoned for drug offenses are black or Latino. Black men have been admitted to state prison on drug charges at a rate that is more than thirteen times higher than white men. Arrests and convictions for drug offenses, not violent crimes, have propelled mass incarceration among African-Americans and Latinos. They are convicted of drug offenses at rates out of all proportion to their drug crimes. The system of mass incarceration has operated in a way to effectively sweep people of color off the streets, lock them in jails, and then release them into an inferior second-class status. When it comes to racial bias in the drug war, research indicates that it was inevitable, and a public consensus was constructed by political and media elites that drug crime is black and brown. Once this "black drug crime" became conflated in the public consciousness, the black men would be the primary targets of law enforcements.

For my Civic Engagement project, I plan on studying and learning more about Drug Courts. After reading about drug courts in the state courts chapter and after watching the video, A Better Deal, about the nations first drug court, I immediately got hooked on the topic and wanted to learn more about the court in depth. Before we go more in depth about the topic, let’s take a step back and ask, “What is drug court and what is the purpose for it?” Drug court is a specialized court, meaning it is it’s own court. Drug court is a diversionary program that offers offenders a second chance to correct their drug problems and also offers an alternative route rather than going to prison for breaking the law due to their drug abuse. The goal for drug courts

Blacks are (proportionately) more likely than whites to live in such inner-city areas and thus more likely than whites to be arrested on drug charges.7 But one very important reason that blacks are more likely than whites to live in disorganized inner-city areas is that a greater percentage of blacks than whites are poor and unemployed. What might at first look like a straightforward racial disparity turns out to reflect economic status. 3. Blacks who travel the full route of the criminal justice system and end up in jail or prison are close in economic condition to whites who do. In 1978, 53 percent of black jail inmates had pre-arrest incomes below $3,000, compared with 44 percent of whites.8 1983, the median pre-arrest income of black jail inmates was $4,067 and that of white jail inmates was $6,312. About half of blacks in jail were unemployed before arrest and 44 percent of whites were.9 In 1991, 30 percent of whites in the prison population and 38 percent of blacks reported full- or part-time employment during the month before their arrest.10 4. Some studies suggest that race works to heighten the effects of economic condition on criminal justice outcomes, so that “being unemployed and black substantially increase[s] the chances of incarceration over those associated with being either unemployed or black.”11 This means that racism will

The War on Drugs in the United States has a profound influence on both the incarceration rates and activities of the criminal justice system. Many politicians and advocates of the policy claim that the War on Drugs is a necessary element to deter criminal behavior and reduce the crime rate. However, studies show that drug deterrent policies on possession and use have been inadequate and unsuccessful (Cole & Gertz, 2013). Studies also show that the War on Drugs has not attained its objectives because the policy exhibits racial discrepancy as it has led to the disproportionate incarceration of Blacks and minorities. Specifically, evidence indicates that the upper class, generally White individuals, is more likely to use powered cocaine while