The Effects Of Substance Use And Incarceration

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.

The War on Drugs is one cause for the mass incarceration that has become apparent within the United States. This refers to a drastic amount of people being imprisoned for mainly non-violent crime (“Mass Incarceration” 2016). In addition to people who are not an immediate threat to society being locked up for a substantial duration of time, the economic consequences are costing states and taxpayers millions of dollars. Specifically, every one in five people incarcerated is in prison due to some

Mass black incarceration has a myriad of effects on the culture and society of black communities across the nation. This paper examines these effects, including the reasons for black male incarceration, the widespread nature of it, the effects it has on black women, children and the community. The research was taken from several social scientists well-respected in African-American culture and includes interviews, surveys, raw statistics and data. By compiling this research, it is clear that a common theme is that the black women of African-American

The War on Drugs and Mass Incarceration have been two very well-known topics of society. While these have taken place during the Cold War, there is still a continuance in them today. The impact that has been left on society from these issues have stuck around, while mass incarceration is still of talk today.

Drug use and abuse is not a new problem for America’s prison system, and is one which speaks to the larger issue corrupting the judicial system as a whole. As of 2013, of those prisoners serving at least a year long sentence, 51 percent (98,200) of them were serving for drug offenses (Carson, 2014). To contrast the incarcerated with those on probation and parole, some 25 percent (977,662) of the 3.9 million people on probation were charged with drug

Until the early 20th century, Americans were legally able to obtain drugs such as cocaine, cannabis, and heroin. In fact, these types of drugs were found in medicines and drinks such as Coca-Cola. By the early 1900s, between 250,000-500,000 Americans were addicted to drugs. This rise of addiction in the United States created a growing public concern that addiction would become a more widespread issue, and they felt this problem needed a government solution. For example, in 1875, the first restrictive legislation concerning drugs began in San Francisco when a law was passed to limit the use of opium dens in public indoor establishments. Almost 100 years later, the Controlled Substance Act was passed in 1970. Shortly after, Richard Nixon declared

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.

Today in the United States a land that claims to be the freest nation on the face of the Earth more people will wake up inside of a federal/state prison or a county jail cell than in any other country on the planet. As of 2012 this figure was a staggering 2,228,400 (jail 744,500; prison 1,483,900) add in to this the additional sum of just over 5 million people on parole (851,200) and probation (3,942,800) giving us a grand total of over 7 million citizens under some level of Federal or State supervision (Glaze and Herberman). This is up from only 1,840,421 in 1980 a percentage increase of 281.56% (Glaze and Herberman). As of 2012 over half of the inmates in the federal prison system (50.6%) were incarcerated for drug charges (Caron and Golinelli) while according to 2011 statistics just under 17% of state prisoners were locked away for offenses related to illegal substances (Carson and Sabol). The cost of maintaining this level of incarceration is in all honesty a tremendous burden upon both our justice system and our tax base. If you were to go to the website www.drugsense.org you would see their drug war clock which increases by $500 every second based upon the National Drug Control Policy’s 2010 statistics (Drugsense.org). The country needs to make serious changes in order to alleviate this Promethean like burden that has been placed on our tax payers and our infrastructure. Our system desperately needs reform in order to rescue society from these metaphorical

Between 1990 and 1999, individuals who were convicted of a drug crime rose past 100,000, which accounted for 20 percent of our nation’s increased prison population (Lurigio, 2008). Between 1995 and 2003, the number of drug-related offenders constituted the largest increase of criminals in our nation’s prison population (Lurigio, 2008). In 2004, approximately 50 percent of state prisoners were known to be substance abusers or have drug dependency (King & Pasquarella, 2009). During these years, drug offenders were crowding dockets, prisons, and nearly the entire criminal justice system (Lurigio, 2008). Due to the expensive cost of handling such cases and the difficulty of changing the habits of drug abusers, community based programs were introduced to slow the drastic increase of drug-related incarcerations (Lurigio, 2008). According to the Office of National Drug Control Policy, Americans owed nearly 32 billion dollars toward criminal justice expenses, 31 billion dollars toward lost productivity, and three billion towards property damage in 1998 (King & Pasquarella, 2009). These chain of events built the foundation for Drug Treatment Courts (DTC) here in the United States. The origin of the first-ever drug court was located in the 11th Judicial Circuit in Miami-Dade County, Florida in 1989 (King & Pasquarella, 2009). DTC programs maintain

The discussion here will pursue the claim that we have experienced a major failure of the central philosophy of the War On Drugs. The

Drug addiction in this country takes a toll on every single aspect of productivity, healthcare costs and on the criminal justice system. The addict themselves suffer from impaired judgment, poor anger management and violent behavior which could all lead to crimes committed and being locked up (Drugabuse.org,2017). Treatment for the users offers an alternative to imprisonment. Drugabuse.org insists that treatment offers the best alternative for interrupting the drug use and criminal behavior patterns of the offenders (2014). Additionally, untreated drug offenders “are more likely to relapse into drug use and criminal behavior, jeopardizing public health and safety and taxing the criminal justice system.”

The War on Drugs is a term that is commonly applied to the campaign of prohibition of drugs. The goal of this campaign is to reduce the illegal drug trade across America. This term “ War on Drugs” was used during Nixon’s campaign in which he declared War on Drugs during a press conference in 1971. Following this declaration many organizations were created to stop the spread of drugs, like the DEA and Office of Drug Abuse Law Enforcement. Note that Nixon’s approach to this problem was to fund treatment rather than law enforcement. After Nixon’s retirement from office, most of the funding went from going into treatment to the law enforcement. Which militarized the police force giving the officer’s military weapons and gear. With this, the sentencing for possessing drugs was changed as well, resulting incarcerations rates to increase overtime. The increase of incarceration rates started to create many patterns that were soon noticeable. The funding’s that go into the law enforcement has shown to greatly have an affect on the incarceration rates.

Social policy is one of several reasons why correctional institutions and substance abuse have an interwoven history. The War on Drugs and deinstitutionalization both played a significant role in the skyrocketing numbers of individuals with substance use disorders ending up in jail and prisons. The former disproportionately incarcerated substance users, while the latter left those with serious substance use problem and other co-occurring disorders nowhere to go but prisons and jails.

It is commonly viewed among key stakeholders in the criminal justice system that drug and alcohol use share a relationship with some criminal acts and repeat offenses. A study by Beth Huebner shows that drug and alcohol use is widespread among offenders in Illinois (Huebner). A total of 64 percent of Huebner’s study sample had previous substance abuse history, which is consistent with documented national research (Huebner). Taking a deeper look into the nation’s prison population, it shows that drug and alcohol use will greatly increase the probability that an individual will enter into serious criminal doings. According to The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, in 2006 drugs and/or alcohol were connected with 78 percent of violent crimes; 83 percent of property crimes; and 77 percent of public order, immigration, weapon offenses, and probation/parole violations (National

In a study that was done back in 1970 by Sutherland and Cressey, they pointed out that in the U.S. alone, “felons are overrepresented in the addict population, [and] crime rates are increased considerably by drug addiction” (1970, p. 164). Despite having proposed several hypotheses attempting to explain the correlation between drug abuse and crime, they could not reach a conclusion. A decade later, the knowledge about the drug/crime relationship had steadily increased due to numerous studies of the incarcerated or addicted population. However, the information didn’t reveal any viewpoints that made sense aside from heroin. This view was