War On Drugs Case Study

What affect did the “War on Drugs” have on America during the mid 1980s-early 2000s? Annotated Bibliography Primary Sources Applewhite, Scott. “War on Drugs Washington D.C.” July 18, 1989. Washington D.C., District of Columbia, United States.

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

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.

“The United States has 5 percent of the world’s population, but 25 percent of its prisoners. The cost of housing all those inmates: $80 billion a year” (Whitaker, 2016). The United States (U.S.) has been fighting an unwinnable war for the past thirty years. The U.S. government and the War on Drugs has disproportionately impacted African Americans and the prison population has quadrupled over the last thirty years. The U.S Government polices of the war on drugs have contributed to the mass incarceration of African American males due to sentencing and race disparities, over-policing, and anti-drug policies.

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.

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

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 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.

The United States of America has the largest prison population in the world. The United States incarcerates six hundred ninety-three people per one hundred thousand people and boasts an incarceration rate that is almost five times higher than most other countries (Wagner & Walsh, 2016). The incarceration rate within the U.S. is significantly higher than the incarceration rates of other countries due to the prevalence of institutional racism within the American criminal justice system. While the criminal justice system unjustly targets minority individuals, African Americans and Hispanics are especially targeted (Brennan & Spohn, 2009). African Americans and Hispanics account for a minority of the U.S. population but make up the majority of the U.S. prison population. Despite comprising only 13.6% of the U.S. population (Rastogi, Johnson, Hoeffel, and Drewery, 2011), African Americans account for 37.8% of all prisoners in the U.S. (Inmate Race, 2017). Hispanics are also targeted by the criminal justice system at abnormally high rates. Hispanics make up

The demographics of the prison population in America are very discouraging with a very high unbalanced proportion of the prison population being African-American. Although approximately 12% to 13% of the American population is African American, African-Americans make up over 40% of the prison population. This number is so unusually disproportionate that many critics believe that the African-American community is judged harsher than it would the Hispanics or the Caucasians. The same critics also believe that it is because many of the policies related to incarceration were designed specifically to target the African-American community. Mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses were directly targeted towards these communities. Much of the time drug enforcement officers go into the African American communities and set up sting operations that entrap

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

010, U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics showed that black males had an imprisonment rate of close to seven times the incarceration rate of white men with the rate of incarceration for black women nearly three times the rate of white women (5). Human “Rights Watch” noted in a 2009 study; blacks are arrested at a higher rate than whites even though blacks commit drug offenses far less than whites (6).

Research frequently attributes some portion of recent disparities to changes in the prosecution and punishment of drug-related and other non-violent offenses and the host of sentencing laws enacted during the early 1980s (Beckett and Sasson 2000). As we look at the type of punishment we must also look at the fairness of treatment. A long line of research shows that African American and Hispanic criminal defendants are treated more harshly than their White counterparts by the police (Chambliss 1994), by judges (Hagan and Peterson 1995; Steffensmeier, Ulmer, and Kramer 1998; Spohn and Holleran 2000) and by parole and release boards (Myers 1993). This research states that not only does the type of punishment received affect the individuals and their outcome but how that punishment is carried out. A study from the political research association found that blacks are more likely to be sentenced to prison for the same crime than Whites. One third of people of color sentenced to prison would have received a shorter or non-incarcerative sentence if they had been treated in court the same way as White defendants facing similar charges (Civil Rights Org 2002).

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

In 2009 1,663,582 people were arrested for non-violent drug charges. These people’s lives are now forever changed because of a mistake they made. This mistake is continually made every single day and Americans are being punished in extreme ways for a non violent crime. The United States needs to decimalize all drugs because the drug war is costly, causes high incarceration rates, and isn’t effective as European drug solutions.