War On Drugs Case Study

In 1971, President Richard Nixon declared a war on drugs. This war was commenced to repel the wave of drugs rushing throughout the world. The U.S. has taken plenty of measures to fight back against drugs; whether it’s criminalizing the use of these drugs, hunting those who sell them, or making anti-drug propaganda to sway citizens and users away from them, not all of it has been beneficial to the world. Some of the tactics used have wasted money, imprisoned innocent people, and has gotten people killed. The war on drugs has been taken too far and needs to end before more lives in the world are ruined.

The prison system exists as a form of formal punishment for persons of wrongdoing and serves as a secure dwelling to protect the public from persons who engage in illegal and or violent behavior. Minorities are the majority of the prison population. Because of possible ingrained stereotypes regarding racial groups and drug related criminal offenses there are an elevated number of minorities in United States prisons (Tamborini, Huang, Mastro, & Nabashi-Nakahara, 2007, p. 342). Legal authorities and juries may show bias towards minority groups resulting in a disadvantage when it comes to charging those of the African-American race. African-Americans are generally more frequently targeted than Caucasians regarding drug related crimes.

“Over 40 year ago president nixon, Declared Drug abuse public enemy number one, starting an unprecedented global Campaign, the war on drug.

“Over 40 year ago president nixon, Declared Drug abuse public enemy number one, starting an unprecedented global Campaign, the war on drug.

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

In the past forty years, the United States has spent over $2.5 trillion dollars funding enforcement and prevention in the fight against drug use in America (Suddath). Despite the efforts made towards cracking down on drug smugglers, growers, and suppliers, statistics show that addiction rates have remained unchanged and the number of people using illegal drugs is increasing daily (Sledge). Regardless of attempts to stem the supply of drugs, the measure and quality of drugs goes up while the price goes down (Koebler). Now with the world’s highest incarceration rates and greatest illegal drug consumption (Sledge), the United States proves that the “war on drugs” is a war that is not being won.

Of the many tribulations that plague Americans today, the increase in the amount of African American men and women in prisons is unbelievable. It would be naïve to say that the increase is due to the fact that more African Americans are committing crimes now than before. When in actuality it has very prevalent connections to a systematic plan to incarcerate a race of people by creating harsh drug laws to

The American “War on Drugs” war created to keep an exorbitant amount of people behind bars, and in a subservient status. First, America has a storied history when it comes to marijuana use. However, within the last 50 years legislation pertaining to drug use and punishment has increased significantly. In the modern era, especially hard times have hit minority communities thanks to these drug laws. While being unfairly targeted by drug laws and law enforcement, minorities in America are having a difficult time trying to be productive members of society.

2001 - Joaquin “Shorty” Guzman Mexico’s most wanted drug lord escapes from a Mexican prison.

Members of the immigrant and juvenile population also find themselves being classified in this group, but this section focuses on how the incarceration rates disproportionately affect members of the African American community. Many Americans are serving time in prison on non-violent offense charges. As the rates of incarceration rise, so too has the number of private prisons increased from holding 7000 inmates in 1990 to holding 126,000 in 2010 (Brickner and Diaz). African Americans make up half of the state and federal prison population, “There are currently more black people under correctional control–either in prison or jail or on probation or parole–than were in slavery in 1850” (Jackson et al.). Because of the aforementioned war on drugs, blacks are targeted, arrested, and incarcerated on drug possession charges at higher rates than any other demographic “… there were 193 white American prison inmates per 100,000 whites, 688 Hispanic prison inmates per 100,000 Hispanic, and 1,571 African American prison inmates per 100,000 African American” (Irwin, Schiraldi and Ziedenberg 137). The ones who benefited from this disproportion were the private prison industries who took advantage of the influx of prisoners being supplied to the public sector prison because of the war on drugs. The members of the black community become the

Brennan and Spohn (2009), examined the effects of ethnicity and gender on sentencing lengths for drug offenders. It was discovered that African American males received longer sentences than those of white and Hispanic males. Female offenders of all ethnicities received shorter prison sentences than the prison sentences passed down upon male drug offenders. The study focused on data which was collected from three U.S. District Courts: the District of Minnesota, the District of Nebraska, and the Southern District of Iowa. While African American drug offenders were sentenced to longer sentences on average, only African American males were sentenced to significantly longer than any other individuals, regardless of their sex or ethnicity. Female drug offenders were also found to have received shorter sentences than male drug

The United States government has been wasting millions of dollars each year on a worthless war that cannot be won. This war is explained in detail by author Art Caden in their essay “Let’s Be Blunt” about the United State war on drugs. The war on drugs began in 1971 under the order of President Richard Nixon, and it was one of the worst decisions he ever made. It has been nothing but a waste of government funding, time, and manpower that can only be described as a dismal failure and should be repealed or at the very least medical marijuana should be made legal.

It is widely known that the United States is the number one country in the world with the highest incarceration rate. Race and ethnicity have a huge impact on the decisions that the criminal justice system makes. The competition between presidents of whom was more tougher on crime, the war on drugs, and the three strikes policy led the U.S. to a mass incarceration era with racial and ethnic disparities. According to Pager the war on drugs targeted African Americans the most (Pager 20). At this time, drug crimes were the perfect target to incarcerate more African American men. Since then, minority groups experience inequality and discrimination in the criminal justice system compared to the

(1) The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 which congress passed was a remedy that would end the on slot of crime and Violence which was becoming ramped in city streets and spilling over to urban neighborhoods. The enacting of these laws were the direct results of the mass prosecution of American Minorities with African Americans defendants being charged with crack offences, while white offenders were usually indicted on powder cocaine possession, Because making the sentencing for African Americans harsher than that of their white counterparts. (1) The sentencing disparities were broken up in tiers between crack cocaine and powder cocaine the inequality of sentencing was for example If an African American is arrested for possession of 5 grams of crack his sentence is will start at a mandatory minimum sentence of (5, 10, 15) years in prison where as their counterparts 500 grams of powder (5, 10, 15) years in prison. The difference is astronomical and would the main contributor to the pandemic of mass incarceration of minorities. Judicial Racial bias keeps more people of color in prisons and on probation than ever before a direct result of

According to Vanita Gupta, for many decades the criminal justice have being driven by the “war on drugs” and “get tough” on crime which has create more problems to the criminal justice. In the hope that, mass incarceration will promote safety and health but didn’t. Gupta calls attention to the problem that, taxpayer, community of color and schools were affected by the “war on drugs” and “get tough” on crime. Community of color where more likely to have high rate of incarceration and crimes, the government cut funds to the school system while increases the funds to the prisons. Gupta Claims, during the 1980s and 1990s criminal justice incarcerate non-violent offender, elderly, mentally ill, and those with drug addiction who need treatment