War on Drugs

852 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: debate on racial imbalance within the justice system

Drug felonies and incarceration rates due to the war on drugs and strict law enforcement policies have found their target in the impoverished communities of the United States; thus, drug laws have become racially bias. Eugene Jarecki’s documentary, The House I Live In, sheds light on the increasing consequences that low-income families have come to face because of mandatory minimum sentences for possession, sell, or use of illicit substances. In Jarecki’s film (2012), he interviewed Pat Robertson who stated, “If you stand in a federal court you see poor, uneducated people be fed into a machine. Like meat to make sausage” to depict the consequences of drug laws on poverty stricken individuals who cannot afford a proper defense attorney. The effects of mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses have come to affect low-income minorities, in which these convicted felons are kept in an on-going cycle of finding refuge in the streets, and the underground world of drugs. The targeted individuals of strict policing and enforcement of drug laws have become another number in the correctional system; thus, sky rocketing incarceration rates. Individuals also face inability to uplift themselves from the realm of drugs and crimes; meanwhile, the nation continues to place itself in debt on fighting a war on its own people.
Policing of drug enforcement laws and their strict implementation has come to vary among the states and cities, with certain communities becoming highly vulnerable to incarceration. Lynch, Omori, Rousell, and Valasik (2013) concluded that the high number of prosecution against the “problem areas” individuals who are suspected of a drug offense has come to deteriorate communities. (p. 337). Communities have become witnesse...

... middle of paper ...

... workforce.
Being convicted of a drug belong and forced to poverty stricken areas, drug offenders face the inability to reestablish themselves and escape from being rooted to the world of drugs.

Works Cited

Drug Policy Alliance. (2014). http://www.drugpolicy.org/
Lynch, M., Omori, M., Roussell, A., & Valasik, M. (2013). Policing the ‘progressive’ city: The racialized geography of drug law enforcement. Theoretical Criminology, 17(3), 335-357. Retrieved from Criminal Justice Abstracts database.
Schoenfeld, H. (2012). The war on drugs, the politics of crime, and mass incarceration in the united states. Journal of Gender, Race & Injustice, 15(2), 315-352. Retrieved from Criminal Justice Abstracts database.
St. John, C., Shopsin, M., Cullman, S., & Jarecki, E. (Producer), & Eugene, J. (Producer). (2012). The house I live in [Motion Picture]. United States

Show More
Related

  • America's War on Drugs - The Prison Industrial Complex

    905 Words  | 2 Pages

    After viewing the documentary: America's War on Drugs - The Prison Industrial Complex, it is clear that the Criminal Justice System is in desperate need of reconstruction and repair with policies such as the mandatory minimum sentencing act which has proven to be unsuccessful and unjust in its efforts to deter 'criminals from committing illegal acts' as seen with the increase of incarcerations of the American people and the devastating effect it has had on those in prison and the family members of those incarcerated.

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast Drug Courts Vs. Incarceration

    1406 Words  | 3 Pages

    Within our society, there is a gleaming stigma against the drug addicted. We have been taught to believe that if someone uses drugs and commits a crime they should be locked away and shunned for their lifetime. Their past continues to haunt them, even if they have changed their old addictive ways. Everyone deserves a second chance at life, so why do we outcast someone who struggles with this horrible disease? Drug addiction and crime can destroy lives and rip apart families. Drug courts give individuals an opportunity to repair the wreckage of their past and mend what was once lost. Throughout this paper, I will demonstrate why drug courts are more beneficial to an addict than lengthy prison sentences.

    Read More

  • Wanted Med In The Philadelphia Ghetto Case Study

    1318 Words  | 3 Pages

    “On the run: Wanted Med in the Philadelphia Ghetto” by Alice Goffman (2009), explores the dysfunctional relationship between individuals in “ghettos” and the criminal justice system. Incarceration rates in the United States have increased seven times over 40 years among Black men with limited education (Goffman 2009:339). Incarceration leads to the discrimination and disadvantage of Black males; socially and economically (Goffman 2009:339). Additionally, increased incarcerations influence the amount of policing in communities. Subsequently, increased incarcerations of individuals from poor communities, results in increased policing in their neighbourhoods. Goffman (2009) focuses her study on the rate of incarceration and police

    Read More

  • The House I Live Documentary Analysis

    874 Words  | 2 Pages

    “The House I Live” by Eugene Jarecki is a documentary that sheds a light on America’s ongoing battle with drug abuse by encompassing multiple viewpoints from all walks of life ranging from both sides of the law and everything in between: the police officers, politicians, drug dealers, inmates, grieving parents, authors and journalists about how the war of drugs affect their lives and the lives of others. The overall purpose of the documentary was to show the war on drugs and how it has failed in the United States.

    Read More

  • The Pros And Cons Of Mass Incarceration

    958 Words  | 2 Pages

    A 1997 RAND Corporation study found that treatment of heavy drug users was almost ten times more cost effective in reducing drug use, sales, and drug-related crime than longer mandatory sentences (Echols, 2014). Other studies have shown that mandatory penalties have no demonstrable marginal or short-term effects on overall crime reduction either. Congress established mandatory sentences in order to incarcerate high-level drug criminals, but according to the U.S. Sentencing Commission, only 11 percent of drug charged prisoners fit that description (Echols, 2014). Most of those incarcerated are low-level offenders, whose spots in drug trafficking are easily filled by other people. Mandatory minimum sentencing is essentially a waste of scarce criminal justice resources and federal funds that could be used elsewhere, and The Smarter Sentencing Act’s reduction of mandatory minimums can be the first step in eliminating minimum sentencing altogether. Ideally, given the opportunity for discretion, judges would be more inclined to issue more effective alternatives to incarceration, such as rehabilitation programs and/or

    Read More

  • Examples Of Mass Incarceration In The New Jim Crow

    1505 Words  | 4 Pages

    Michelle Alexander asserts that mass incarceration in contemporary American society is the result of targeting African Americans in the “War on Drugs” and serves to maintain a racial caste system similar to the system that existed during pre-Civil War slavery and has been propelled by what Michael Cohen calls “Jim Crow political logic” of Southern

    Read More

  • America's War on Drugs: Policy and Problems

    4902 Words  | 10 Pages

    America's War on Drugs: Policy and Problems. In this paper I will evaluate America's War on Drugs. More specifically, I will outline our nation's general drug history and look critically at how Congress has influenced our current ineffective drug policy. Through this analysis, I hope to show that drug prohibition policies in the United States, for the most part, have failed.

    Read More

  • Persuasive Essay On Mass Incarceration

    1168 Words  | 3 Pages

    Mass incarceration has put a large eye-sore of a target on the United States’ back. It is hurting our economy and putting us into more debt. It has considerable social consequences on children and ex-felons. Many of these incarcerations can be due to the “War on Drugs”. We should contract the use of incarceration.

    Read More

  • The War On Drugs: The New Jim Crow

    1241 Words  | 3 Pages

    The War on Drugs is believed to help with many problems in today’s society such as realizing the rise of crime rates and the uprooting of violent offenders and drug kingpin. Michelle Alexander explains that the War on Drugs is a new way to control society much like how Jim Crow did after the Civil War. There are many misconceptions about the War on Drugs; commonly people believe that it’s helping society with getting rid of those who are dangerous to the general public. The War on Drugs is similar to Jim Crow by hiding the real intention behind Mass Incarceration of people of color. The War on Drugs is used to take away rights of those who get incarcerated. When they plead guilty, they will lose their right to vote and have to check application

    Read More

  • Research Papers On Mass Incarceration

    794 Words  | 2 Pages

    Mass Incarceration: The New Jim Crow is the direct consequence of the War on Drugs. That aims to reduce, prevent and eradicate drug use in America through punitive means. The effect of the war on drug policies returned de jure discrimination, denied African Americans justice and undermined the rule of law by altering the criminal justice system in ways that deprive African Americans civil rights and citizenship. In the “New Jim Crow” Alexandra argues that the effects of the drug war policies are not unattended consequences but coordinated by designed to deny African Americans opportunity to gain wealth, be excluded from gaining employment and exercise civil rights through mass incarceration and felony conviction. The war on drugs not only changes the structure of the criminal justice system, it also changes the ways that police officers, prosecutors and judges do their jobs.

    Read More

  • The War on Drugs: Failures of the Drug Law Part 1

    4153 Words  | 9 Pages

    “[The war on drugs] has created a multibillion-dollar black market, enriched organized crime groups and promoted the corruption of government officials throughout the world,” noted Eric Schlosser in his essay, “A People’s Democratic Platform”, which presents a case for decriminalizing controlled substances. Government policies regarding drugs are more focused towards illegalization rather than revitalization. Schlosser identifies a few of the crippling side effects of the current drug policy put in place by the Richard Nixon administration in the 1970s to prohibit drug use and the violence and destruction that ensue from it (Schlosser 3). Ironically, not only is drug use as prevalent as ever, drug-related crime has also become a staple of our society. In fact, the policy of the criminalization of drugs has fostered a steady increase in crime over the past several decades. This research will aim to critically analyze the impact of government statutes regarding drugs on the society as a whole.

    Read More

  • hgfds

    685 Words  | 2 Pages

    Aside from the violence and costly attempts of control that accompany drug trade, there are severe social implications of the U.S war on drugs. One of the major social topics today is that of Marijuana use and punishment in America. Since 1937, over 26 million Americans have been arrested for Marijuana use. [2] The effects and harms are still debated today, yet many people serve time in jails and prisons, waiting to be released with criminal record that will follow them for the rest of their life. Further, those incarcerated are represented by a disproportionate amount ...

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast The Liberal And Liberal Views On The War On Drugs

    1016 Words  | 3 Pages

    The purpose of this essay is to interpret the views of conservatives Sasha Abramsky, writing in the liberal magazine, the Nation, uses California as an example in which getting rid of the harsh drug policies would be a huge benefit to the economy. In the article titled “The War Against the ‘War on Drugs,’” Abramsky finds a correlation between the drug policies and incarceration rates. Abramsky writes about how some of the state’s political figures are finding that the war on drugs is “responsible for the spike in prison populations over the past thirty years” and they agree that the California’s drug policies “are not financially viable and no longer command majority support among the voting public” (18).

    Read More

  • Mass Incarceration Essay

    754 Words  | 2 Pages

    According to the Oxford Index, “whether called mass incarceration, mass imprisonment, the prison boom, or hyper incarceration, this phenomenon refers to the current American experiment in incarceration, which is defined by comparatively and historically extreme rates of imprisonment and by the concentration of imprisonment among young, African American men living in neighborhoods of concentrated disadvantage.” It should be noted that there is much ambiguity in the scholarly definition of the newly controversial social welfare issue as well as a specific determination in regards to the causes and consequences to American society. While some pro arguments cry act as a crime prevention technique, especially in the scope of the “war on drugs’.

    Read More

  • The Failure of the War on Drugs

    1021 Words  | 3 Pages

    Not only has the drug war failed to reduce violent and property crime, but, by shifting criminal justice resources (the police, courts, prisons, probation officers, etc.) away from directly fighting such crime, the drug war has put citizens’ lives and property at greater risk, Benson and Rasmussen contend. “Getting tough on drugs inevitably translates into getting soft on nondrug crime,” they write. “When a decision is made to wage a ‘war on drugs,’ other things that criminal justice resources might have to be sacrificed.” To support this conclusion, Benson and Rasmussen compare data on drug law enforcement and crime trends between states, and debunk numerous misconceptions about drug use and criminality.

    Read More

More about War on Drugs

Open Document