African American Drug War

Since crack cocaine was cheaper to purchase and could be sold in small quantities, it was said to be more addicting. Although this theory was found to be false, Congress remained silent about it while the offenders were disproportionately sentenced. What this meant was that 500 grams of powder cocaine carried the same mandatory sentence as 5 grams of crack cocaine which was five years. And although there were White, Latino and African Americans cocaine users, 80 percent of those users sentenced in federal court for crack cocaine offenses were African American (Mauer,

People think that the cops are not racist but the stats are that the blacks commit more crimes. They are not wrong because it is a proven fact. Mac Donald interviewed several African American police officers who believe that the police are not racist. According to her, the police target blacks more than whites because more blacks commit crimes. The black officers said “that charges of racism undermine the good work of police departments across the nation.”

The increased interest on drug policy by the United States government took a heavy toll on African Americans, as “black Americans then constituted approximately 12 percent of our country's population and 13 percent of drug users. Nevertheless, they accounted for 33 percent of all drug-related arrests, 62 percent of drug-related convictions and 70 percent of drug-related incarcerations” (Qk3). African Americans were heavily targeted during these times of increased vigilance in the past with increased focus on drug policies, as it was easier with the active laws to focus attention on African Americans because of the difference in severity of sentence length depending on the type of drug in possession. Since crack cocaine was more common among African Americans the penalty for being caught with crack cocaine was much more severe than that of the penalty for powder cocaine, which was a staple among the

The people incarcerated for drug abuse are mainly Black or other minorities. The system can not be color blind when a specific group is incarcerated at higher rates than another. According to “ The Drug War as Race War,” Kenneth B. Nunn shares a fact from the Mental Health department saying that “ 76% are White drug users, 14% are Black, and 8% are Hispanic” ( Nunn). The incarceration rates should be higher for Whites given the fact that they have a higher drug usage reported. In all reality, it would not make sense to lock up any group at a significantly greater rate compared

Many factors of the crack epidemic influenced the crime drop. First, the “precipitous rise in crack cocaine in the mid-to-late 1980s in America” made violence and crime increase drastically (Baumer and Wolff, 2014, p. 21). Since crime shot up, it made statistics seem to drop even more in the 1990s, especially for homicides, as stated by Levitt (2004). The shift from young people to a “graying” society is another point at which Baumer, Wolff and Levitt can all agree could be a cause for the crime drop of the 1990s (Baumer and Wolff, 2014, p. 20).

Michelle Alexander’s “The New Jim Crow is a truly thought provoking book attempting to show the enduring issues of racial inequalities in our Criminal Justice system. Racial inequality in America is a huge and controversial topic, especially in reference to America’s system of Criminal justice. In “The New Jim Crow” Alexander focuses on the racial undertones of America’s “War on drugs”. Alexander uses the chapters of her book to take us on a journey through America’s racial history and argues that the federal drug policy unjustly targets black communities.

Racial Profiling” as it’s known today was started in 1980’s under President Ronald Reagans’ “War on Drugs” (a war Reagan declared while drug use and crimes were both on the decline (4). Regan’s “War on Drugs” was a partisan show of force that he, Bush Senior and Junior and subsequent Presidents used to try and convenience people they were concerned with public safety and American citizens who had fallen victim to crimes committed by drug users and drug dealers. (Even, while it was widely reported Ronald Reagans’ son, Ronnie junior and former President George Bush Senior’s son, former President George Bush Junior were both smoking weed and snorting cocaine (4). While the “War on Drugs” was based on political motives, (that is not the full story) as the “war on drugs” in hindsight proved itself to be a social containment strategy and ultimately a “war” on black and brown surplus people ().

Poverty indirectly occurs from unemployment, and social disorganization. The economic status of an offender has a significant impact on the likelihood of recidivism. At that point, law enforcement entities and society as a whole started to view African Americans as violent drug offenders (Walker, Delone,

In The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in The Era of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander, she begins by points out the underlying problem in our Criminal Justice system. The problem being prioritizing the control of those in this racial caste rather than focusing on reasonable punishment and efforts to deter crime. Alexander begins by speaking of her experience as a civil rights lawyer and what soon became her priority after seeing a poster that mentioned how the war on drugs is the new jim crow when it comes to the application and outcome of it. As Alexander points out the correlation between the war on drugs and it being the new jim crow, she discusses the mass incarceration that is prevalent in our society and the number of African American

When there was a misdemeanor drug offence, black defendants were 27 percent more likely than whites to get a plea offer that included incarceration.” This shows unfairness

This then resulted in more African Americans getting arrested for possession of drugs. Once they were arrested the amount of time they would do for the possession was sometimes life sentences. This caused prisons to become over crowded and

There is no difference between whites and blacks using or dealing drugs, however blacks are four to eleven times more likely to be arrested for drug offenses, according to the Human Rights Watch. This is a repetition of history, as African American communities are yet again disproportionally

“Circumspect Police Ends the Drop in Crime?” This debate topic speaks about police being less proactive, because of vitriol, and causing an increase in crime rates. This debate topic is not directly related to the book, Ghettoside, but falls into the same bracket. The debate talks about the police becoming less involved because of denunciation, and rates of crimes increasing because of that. Ghettoside talks about the black-on-black homicide rates going up, one reason, because of the ignorance of the police.

The legalization of drugs has been at the center of interminable debate. Drugs have widely been perceived as a dominant threat to the moral fabric of society. Drug use has been attributed as the source responsible for a myriad of key issues. For instance, it is believed that drugs have exacerbated the already weak status of mental health in the United States in which some individuals suffering from mental illness administer illicit substances such as heroin or cocaine in an attempt to self-medicate. Moreover, drugs are blamed for turning auspicious members of the community into worthless degenerates. Thus, vast efforts have been made to regulate the alleged drug problem through various avenues. For example, programs have been created to steer

A greater population of blacks live in condensed civil areas than whites. Dense urban areas are more policed than suburban or rural areas. It’s easier to control cities because everyone is more closer together which causes the crime rate to go up in these areas. But, just because of the choice in where you choose to live doesn’t give the right for certain people to be judged against because of their race, color, or where they come from. Black and white people use marijuana at the same rates, yet black people are at a greater risk in being