The war on drugs has maintained an accumulation of prohibitions on illegal drugs and mandatory minimum sentencing strategies for drug offenders. Incarceration rates have also increased due to the increase of laws against illegal drugs. In Eugene Jarecki’s film, The House I Live In, Jarecki states that the penalties for crack users were harsher than penalties for regular cocaine users. This suggests that penalties are more of a double standard theory. The “War on Drugs” is more of a failure that places restrictions and prohibitions on drug offenders and has not necessarily shown a sense of equal stability; thus, leading to faulty sentences, misinterpretations of the real purpose of this initiative, and an overpopulation of prisons. These sentencing strategies are more disproportionate when it comes to different drugs. For example, crack cocaine and regular white cocaine. “These guidelines have significantly required disproportionately long sentences for drug offenders for 20 years and have required significantly longer sentences for crack then white powder offenders (Radosh, 2008). White powder cocaine is no different than crack cocaine except for the fact that they are different in structure, form, and the way one consumes the drug. This just shows one of the major weaknesses in the way these measures are approached. The main intent when President Richard Nixon first used the term “War on Drugs” in 1971 was to imply the severity of drugs in the United States. This meant that an all-out initiative on drugs, drug trafficking, drug trade, sales, consumption and so on, would be carried out without a sense of leniency. What most people did not anticipate from this “War on Drugs” was that the opposite would happen. Different circums... ... middle of paper ... ...ing overcrowded, and that does not seem to stop any moment. Sentences are more of a double standard theory when it comes to the amount of crack one person has to the amount of cocaine the other has. It will take more than just introducing a term as the “War on Drugs” to actually rid the United States of drugs. Just as it was said in, The House I Live In, drugs will never go away and they will always be there. Works Cited Radosh, P. F. (2008) RESEARCH ARTICLE. War on drugs: gender and race inequities in crime control strategies. Criminal Justice Studies, 2, 167-178. doi: 10.1080/14786010802159830 Schoenfeld, H. (2012). The War on Drugs, the Politics of Crime, and Mass Incarceration in the United States. The Journal of Gender; Race & Justice Drug Policy Alliance. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.drugpolicy.org/new-solutions-drug-policy/brief-history-drug-war
In Douglas N. Husak’s A Moral Right to Use Drugs he attempts to look at drug use from an impartial standpoint in order to determine what is the best legal status for currently illegal drugs. Husak first describes the current legal situation concerning drugs in America, citing figures that show how drug crimes now make up a large percentage of crimes in our country. Husak explains the disruption which this causes within the judicial system and it is made clear that he is not content with the current way drugs are treated. The figures that Husak offers up, such as the fact that up to one third of all felony charges involve drugs, are startling, but more evidence is needed than the fact that a law is frequently broken to justify it’s repeal.
Drug policies stemming from the War on Drugs are to blame, more specifically, the mandatory minimum sentencing mandates on petty drug charges that have imprisoned millions of non-violent offenders in the last three decades. Since this declaration of war, the percentage of drug arrests that result in prison sentences (rather than probation, dismissal, or community service) has quadrupled, resulting in an unprecedented prison-building boom (Wyler, 2014). There are three main reasons mandatory minimum sentencing laws must be reformed: (1) They impose unduly harsh punishments on relatively low level offenders, leading to the mass incarceration epidemic. (2) They have proven to be cost ineffective fiscally and in crime and drug use reduction. (3) They perpetuate a racially segregated criminal justice system that destroys communities and discourages trust
Human Rights Watch. (2000, May). United States Punishment and Prejudice: Racial Disparities in the War on Drugs (Vol.12, No.2 (G)). New York: Human Rights Watch. Retrieved April 12, 2005, from Human Rights Watch Web site: http://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/usa/Rcedrg00-01.htm
The past quarter century of American history has been profoundly impacted by the “war on drugs.” Ever since the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 was passed by President Richard Nixon, the number of yearly incarcerations for drug violations has grown exponentially. America’s drug policies have cost billions of dollars and imprisoned hundreds of thousands of Americans, yet rates of drug, property, and violent crime have failed to decrease. Yassaman Saadatmand summates the consequences of Nixon’s policies: “Not only has the drug war failed to reduce violent and property crime, but it has also shifted criminal justice resources (the police, courts, prisons, probation officers, etc.) away from directly fighting violent and property crime.” The issue is further complicated by racial inequalities in the rates of drug use and crime. Whereas Whites consist the majority of the population of any state, they are outnumbered by African-Americans in both state and federal prisons (E. Ann Carson 2013). This incongruity is paralleled with many other races, such as an overrepresentation of Native Americans and an underrepresentation of Asians in rates of drug use. What causes this imbalance? What purpose do the higher rates of incarceration for certain minorities serve? As this topic is explored, it becomes evident that the racial disparity in drug crime is perpetuated by America’s legacy of bigotry and racism, capitalism, and a cycle of poverty.
We cannot afford to keep using the same approach in hopes of diminishing our drug problem in the United States. In a study posted on RAND.org, the author Jonathan P. Caulkins compares many methods we can use to help with drug crime. The first graph compares federal mandatory minimum sentences, conventional enforcement at all levels of government, and treatment of heavy users. Conventional enforcement prevented around thirty kilo grams of cocaine from being used, while federal mandatory minimums prevented around forty kilograms from being used. Treatment of heavy users blew both of the other methods out of the water.
The war on drugs is greatly concentrated on cocaine and even more so on crack cocaine.
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.
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
Jones, C. (2009). Ineffective, Unjust and Inhumane: Mandatory Prison Sentences for Drug Offences. The John Howard Society of Canada.
“[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.
The war on drugs began with good intentions, but it is becoming clear that this battle is a failure. Not only do drug laws violate American’s freedoms, but they further complicate the lives of drug users. These laws have inadvertently been responsible for the deaths of thousands through bad drug deals and dirty drugs, which leads one to ask the question, “Is this a war on drugs or a war on drug users?” Body bags and HIV are becoming the most widely known side effects of drug prohibition. Contrary to what many may think, drug use will never be eliminated. Only through legalization and strict state-controlled regulations will the violent and deadly consequences of drug laws be controlled. By making these substances available, the drugs themselves will be safer and cheaper, government spending and prison population will decrease, and most importantly, Americans will be freer.
In 1971, President Nixon declared a “war on drugs.” He substantially increased the presence and size of federal drug agencies, and passed legislation like mandatory sentencing laws and unconstitutional warrants. Nixon even listed marijuana as a Schedule One drug, the most constrictive drug category. Over forty years later, the U.S is still waging a war on drugs, spending billions of dollars per year and creating major social issues.
This supports the conservative’s claim that the war on drugs is not making any progress to stop the supply of drugs coming into America. Conservative writer for the magazine National Review, William Buckley, shows his outrage towards the Council on Crime in America for their lack of motivation to change the drug policies that are ineffective. Buckley asks, “If 1.35 million drug users were arrested in 1994, how many drug users were not arrested? The Council informs us that there are more than 4 million casual users of cocaine” (70). Buckley goes on to discuss in the article, “Misfire on Drug Policy,” how the laws set up by the Council were meant to decrease the number of drug users, not increase the number of violators.
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’.
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.