The Crime Of The American Criminal Justice System

Drugs have been known to be detrimental to American society. Commonly known as “ The war on drugs”. Majority of individuals who are incarcerated have been convicted of some type of drug offense and if not a drug related crimes. In many instances, a person can be sent to a jail or prison without receiving the required treatment to help the individual overcome their drug of choice. Remarkably, there is a court solely focused on an individual with a drug problem, which is known as Drug courts.

Many different states have begun sending nonviolent drug offenders to various kinds of drug treatment program the state offers. By doing this, it has significantly reduced the problems with overcrowding. If an individual is arrested and charged with simple possession of a drug and no other crime is being commented, then this person is doing no harm to anyone else. They should be given the opportunity to try and make a change in their life and beat the addiction. Instead, if this person is thrown into jail, they are still going to be an addict with a criminal record now and will not be able to be a contributing member of society. (Everett 1 ).

The United States has the world's highest incarceration rate. With five percent of the world's population, our country houses nearly twenty-five percent of the world's reported prisoners. Currently there are approximately two million people in American prisons or jails. Since 1984 the prison population for drug offenders has risen from ten percent to now over thirty percent of the total prison population. Federal prisons were estimated to hold 179,204 sentenced inmates in 2007; 95,446 for drug offenses. State prisons held a total of 1,296,700 inmates in 2005; 253,300 for drug offenses. Sixty percent of the drug offenders in prisons are nonviolent and were purely in prison because of drug offenses (Drug War Facts). The question then arises,

The United States incarcerates more people, per capita, than any other nation in the entire world. State and local prisons and jails account for about 80% of incarcerations. Although crime rates have decreased since the 1990s, incarceration rates have soared. According to a recent Prison Policy Initiative publication, approximately 2.3 million people are currently “locked up” in the United States. Of these 2.3 million people, 1 in 5 are locked up for a drug related offense. Statistics show that prisoners and felons imprisoned for drug related crimes are disproportionately Black and Hispanic. The mass incarceration issue in the United States derives from the many arrests associated with these “offenses” regarding drugs and the war on drugs.

The United States is five percent of the world’s population and has twenty five percent of the world’s people incarcerated. This is the highest rate of incarceration in the world. Mass incarceration has been a problem in this country for decades. The war on drugs has increased the odds of incarceration and the length of sentences for non-violent offenders. Ninety five percent of prisoners have plead guilty and one out of five are serving sentences for drug related charges (REF).

It can matter a great deal. While drug penalties vary from state to state, they are almost always more lenient than federal penalties. For instance, a first-time drug trafficking offender could be sentenced to up to 40 years in prison under federal law, while a first-time offender could face 20 years in prison under New York law. In that example, the difference between state and federal charges adds up to 20 years of a defendant’s life.

Drug abuse is shown to be connected to all different kinds of crime in the United States, and in many circumstances, crime is inspired by drug abuse and addiction. In fact, 80% of criminal offenders abuse drugs or alcohol (National Association of Drug Court Professionals). Also, 60% of those who are arrested test positive for illicit drugs when they are arrested, and 60-80% commit another crime, typically drug-related, after leaving prison (National Association of Drug Court Professionals). And, even after these individuals put in the time in prison that would allow them to go through the uncomfortable process of detoxing, 95% of them will chose to go back to drug abuse after prison (National Association of Drug Court Professionals). Given these overwhelming statistics, it is clear that drug abuse, and repeated or continued drug abuse, are a serious problem facing the criminal justice system.

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).

The so called war on drugs potentially causes the American Taxpayer a loss of more than 20-50 billion annually and there are very little results that can be said satisfactory. This does not include the massive amounts of money that United States pays to a number of countries in South America in order to facilitate the curbing of drugs. Furthermore, an alarming number of inmates held in our prisons happen to be drug abuse offenders. Currently the 55% people incarcerated in the federal prisons happen to be drug offenders while the ratio of same people in the state prisons is 25% (Roffman, 7). Such a huge number of drug inmates have the potential of putting a great amount of stress on the system and has serious implications for the economic growth of the whole country. In such circumstances it is quite obvious that the American “war on drugs” has failed to yield the desired objective and more or less can be considered a failure. Decriminalization and treatment have emerged as very powerful alternatives in the recent years to win the war against the

In 2015, the National Survey on Drug Use and Health found that 19.9 million Americans use illegal drugs and more than half of The U.S. prison population is convicted of a drug related crime (Foundation for a Drug-Free World, 2015). The U.S. has the largest prison population in the world and drug related crimes continue to add to the prison population. Due to the high incarceration rate in the U.S., controversy over the effectiveness of our current drug legislation has emerged (Tyjen Tsai and Paola Scommegna, 2015). Current drug laws focus on imprisonment and isolation for the drug offenders. This creates a cycle of drug related criminality because the laws do not treat the motives for drug related crime. These motives include the money and addiction involved with drug offenses such as abuse, crimes to gain money for drugs, and drug selling. While arguments have been made that current drug laws are needed to ensure the stability of society, the solution to ending the cycle of drug related criminality is to focus on rehabilitation that treats motives for drug offenses by educating and treating addiction for felons. (National Institute on Drug Abuse, 2015).

Those incarcerated today are not given the chance to change their behavior patterns, especially when it is in regard to drug addiction. The criminal justice system in general does not consider drug abuse as anything but a crime and does not think about treating the disease of addiction in order to reduce or eliminate the crimes that come as a

According to The Law Dictionary, “They are classified as a Schedule III controlled substance with possession carrying a $1,000 fine and a year in prison, according to federal law. Trafficking carries up to a $250,000 fine and five years in prison for a first offense

Nearly half of all state prisoners are drug abusers or drug dependent, but only 10 percent receive medically based drug treatment during incarceration. Untreated or inadequately treated inmates are more likely to resume using drugs when released from prison, and commit crimes at a higher rate than

Since the early 1960’s there have been an alarming increase in drug use in the United States in 1962, four million Americans had tried an illegal drug. By 1999, that number had risen to a staggering 88.7 million, according to the 1999 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse.

This could include such crimes as theft or prostitution. It is also a crime to use, possess, and partake in drug trafficking, manufacture or distribution of illegal drugs.