The Crack Epidemic in Washington Dc

For many years, drugs have been the center of crime and the criminal justice system in the United States. Due to this widespread epidemic, President Richard Nixon declared the “War on Drugs” in 1971 with a campaign that promoted the prohibition of illicit substances and implemented policies to discourage the overall production, distribution, and consumption. The War on Drugs and the U.S. drug policy has experienced the most significant and complex challenges between criminal law and the values of today’s society. With implemented drug polices becoming much harsher over the years in order to reduce the overall misuse and abuse of drugs and a expanded federal budget, it has sparked a nation wide debate whether or not they have created more harm than good. When looking at the negative consequences of these policies not only has billions of dollars gone to waste, but the United States has also seen public health issues, mass incarceration, and violent drug related crime within the black market in which feeds our global demands and economy. With this failed approach for drug prohibition, there continues to be an increase in the overall production of illicit substances, high rate of violence, and an unfavorable impact to our nation.

In the 80s Boston, as well as other cities, experienced a drug epidemic. The drug was called crack and it affect the city of Boston badly. A nurse named Fulani Haynes at Boston Medical Center was working during the crack epidemic. She explains how to care for babies who were born addicted to drugs that passed from a mother’s bloodstream through the placenta and into a tiny body. “The babies couldn’t tolerate being held or rocked, she recalled. They wailed at the sound of soft lullabies. Only complete darkness, silence, tight swaddling, and medication could soothe them.” This drug has nothing to do with heroin but it shows the people of Boston that if the heroin addiction continues to spread, more and more children will be born addicts and

The 1980s and early 90s were home to an extreme wave of criminal activity that swept across much of the country. The dramatic uptick in crime can largely be attributed to the spread of the crack-cocaine epidemic and subsequent “War on Drugs.” New York City, for example, suffered from 2,605 murders and 208,813 burglaries in 1990, at the height of the violence . Much of this criminal activity centered around and affected the poorest individuals in those communities – which often included minorities.

Since the inception of mandatory minimum cocaine laws in 1986 to the advent of the Armstrong case, not a single white offender had been convicted of a crack cocaine offense in federal courts serving Los Angeles and its six surrounding counties. Rather, virtually all white offenders were prosecuted in state court, where they were not subject to that drug’s lengthy mandatory minimum sentences. The impact of the decision to prosecute the black defendants in federal court was significant. In federal court they faced a mandatory minimum sentence of at least 10 years and a maximum of life without parole if convicted of selling more than 50 grams of crack. By contrast, if prosecuted in California state court, the defendants would have received a minimum sentence of three years and a maximum of five years (United States v. Armstrong, 1996).

Since the 1980s drug offenses have increased from nineteen thousand to two hundred sixty five thousand in 2008. For many years now, our jails have been struggling with overcrowding. In 2010, our President Barack Obama, signed the Fair Sentencing Act. The Fair Sentencing Act helps reduce disproportion between the amount of crack cocaine and powder cocaine. The act helps in determining whether a person who is caught with five grams of crack/ powder cocaine, should receive the same sentencing as someone who has one hundred times more than that. According to the National Governor’s Association, forty-six states were faced with a budget deficit. With the implementation of the Fair sentencing Act in place, we can begin to see the reduction in jail overcrowding.

When crack cocaine hit the streets in 1985, the media made an effort to sensationalize the emergence of this new drug in inner-city neighborhoods. This media sensationalism effectively made the construction of prisons the nation’s main housing program for the urban poor. By the year 2000, the Clinton Administration’s ‘tough on crime’ policies resulted in the largest increases in federal and state prison inmates of any president in American

The 1970’s the United States signaled a pivotal shift for a “ just deserts,” philosophy to model their criminal justice system. With increase punishment for individuals, thousands of prisons were built in order to cope with the rising number of inmates. With the adoption of a punishment oriented philosophy, “ the war on drugs,” emerged as the nation’s solution to deter drug use and drug related crimes. Changes in the criminal justice system produce policy spillover into other branches like prisons, police, and even drug enforcement ; the “ war on drugs,” and stop and frisk are examples of this policy spillover. The crack epidemic in the 1980’s ( approximately 10 years after the start of the “ war on drugs,”) only further prompted politicians

Contrary to popular belief, the war doesn’t target big-time dealers or “kingpins.” In fact, those who are arrested for non-serious offenses, such as the use of marijuana, account for the vast majority of drug arrests (Alexander). For example, four out of five drug arrest in 2005 were for possession, while only one out of five drug arrests were for sale. Furthermore, the majority of drug offenders in state prisons have no history of violence or notable selling activity (Mauer, King). Another myth is that the War on Drugs is mainly concerned with dangerous drugs. Yet, in the 1990s, marijuana possession, which is less harmful than tobacco or alcohol, accounted for almost 80 percent of the rise in drug arrests (King, Mauer). The truth is that

Growing up in Reading, Pennsylvania in a lower-class neighborhood being raised by my maternal grandmother, I did not realize how different my life was from those outside my community. It was normal for me to see empty drug baggies on the ground, people coping drugs on the corner, abandoned buildings, and crime. As I got older, and my network of people grew, I started to notice some differences. However, it wasn’t until I left home at age 18 to attend college did I fully realize that my “normal” was not the “normal”. Most people I grew up with came from low income households and had one or both parents addicted to drugs or alcohol and mines were no different. The 80s-crack cocaine epidemic hit my family hard and by the end of that era my mother and her 6 siblings were all addicted. My mother’s disease progressed over the years and by 1999 she was an IV drug user, who attended 17 different treatment centers, been to jail 3 times, and overdosed countless times.

In the review “Drug Use, Drug Possession Arrests, and the Question of Race: Lessons from Seattle,” analysts questioned if the connection between racial disparity in drug arrests is linked with the underlying factor of harmful forms of drugs being concentrated in poorer areas. These poorer areas are dominantly known for many communities of different colors, especially African Americans and Latinos. The question of whether or not drug arrest is based upon racial bias is highly argued topic today amongst communities and police force. This article talks about the racial disparity, specifically in Seattle, that surrounds drugs in the form of crack cocaine which shaped the way police identify and arrest criminals.  Many experts have theorized

When President Nixon took over he announced war on drugs and implemented forfeiture as a law enforcer. Abadinsky (2013), argues that the main idea behind implementing the law into the war on drugs was the belief that it would strengthen the confiscation of illegal substances and means by which they are manufactured and sold. A law to authorize the forfeiture and seizure of illegal drugs was authorized and amended in 1978 by the congress. The continuing criminal enterprise act was also enacted then targeting repeat offenders of drugs as the control was allowed to ensure that it allowed the police to seize private property used in crime assets (Abadinsky, 2013). This act also allowed the accused to prove that the property was not being used for criminal activities. The burden was on the owner not the police creating a situation where the police

Drug crises have regularly taken center stage in American politics and crime control policies beginning with the heroin epidemic of the 1960’s. The main doctrine in the United States drug policy has been “legalism” since the 1980’s. Penalties toward criminals have emphasized the drug policies and deterrence over prevention and treatment as control mechanisms. This in turn causes a pop-up effect, meaning new problems are more likely to arise elsewhere. For example, resources have shifted from the treatment of users who are susceptible for HIV transmission through high-risk sexual activity, to criminal punishments for low-level crack users. The deterrence strategies have not been successful in reducing drug use from the decades of legalistic

The long federal experiment in prohibition of marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and other drugs has given us unprecedented crime and corruption combined with a manifest failure to stop the use of drugs or reduce their availability to children. The factor that determines the amount of violence created by prohibition is the level of enforcement. There are two main reasons for this. One, black markets only form when the enforcement is very strict and, two, increasingly strict enforcement leads to violence both in making arrests and as competing suppliers seek to capture market share. The violence not only impacts those

In 1968, when American soldiers came home from the Vietnam war addicted to heroin, President Richard Nixon initiated the War on Drugs. More than a decade later, President Ronald Reagan launches the South Florida Drug Task force, headed by then Vice-President George Bush, in response to the city of Miami’s demand for help. In 1981, Miami was the financial and import central for cocaine and Marijuana. Thanks to the task force, drug arrests went up by 27%, and drug seizures went up by 50%. With that, the need for prosecutors and judges also rose which helped boost our economy (Thirty Years of America’s Drug War). Despite these increased arrests and seizures, marijuana and cocaine still poured into south Florida. At this stage, the root of the

Drugs, illegal and legal, have been a part of the history of the United States for almost three centuries. From the time when the 19th century began, Americans went from alcohol as the preferred mood altering substance to a new realm of addiction. During this time Americans were acquaint with wonder drugs such as morphine, heroin, and cocaine. Since that discovery, our society has confronted the problems of drug abuse and addiction (DEA, 2015). Once the 20th century began, the United States, contending with its first drug epidemic in the country’s short history, progressively started effective limitations to combat the epidemic. In the United States through internal law enforcement they began to fight the issue domestically. Through cooperation and sometimes without the United States began spearheading a world crusade to limit opium and coca crops (DEA, 2015). By World War II, the use of drugs in America had declined significantly enough for it to no longer be considered a significant issue. It was then seen as a borderline social problem and pushed