Mass Incarceration War On Drugs

The video that I have chosen is Jayz War on Drugs (Epic Fail). This video informs you on how the war on drugs was started by Richard Nixon in 1971. It also describes how the war on drugs had a negative effect on the African Americans rather it be their families, communities, and schools. The movie The House I live in, describes the war on drugs as black hats vs white hats basically the good guys against the bad guys. In both videos it was discussed how poor neighborhoods were the target for drug bust areas. 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

In the introduction, Michelle Alexander (2010) introduces herself and expresses her passion about the topic of how the criminal justice system accomplishes racial hierarchy here in the United States.

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).

It is an existing theory that our society is constructed via racial dimensions, and that racial equality is a figment of the imagination. This very principle is highlighted in Michelle Alexander’s novel, “The New Jim Crow.” The specific dimensions covered within the text include the unjust aspects of the federal drug policy, and by connection that of mass incarceration as well. Alexander claims that racism is still very prominent in present day society and is direct and frank about the heavy influence of white supremacy.

The author found that more people of color, especially black males are under the control our criminal justice system than were enslaved in 1850. The author supports the pervious idea by using specific examples such as the “War on Drugs” to show people of color are targeted more by law enforcement officers and scrutinize harsher by our courts for drug laws but the drug usage is used at the same rate by blacks and whites. With the help of mass-media, the “crack” epidemic in inner cities, the War on Drugs policies, the “Get tough on crime” policies, and the propaganda about people of color all have influenced the way mainstream society thinks about blacks. The author found that mainstream society believes that black people commits more crime and uses more drugs than white people, so therefore blacks deserved to incarcerated. However, Michelle Alexander disproves in “The New Jim Crow” that blacks commit more crimes than whites, the drug usage rates are the same between both races, propaganda has influenced the way mainstream society views blacks and that the “War on Drugs” and the “Get Tough on Crime” was policies targeted towards inner cities and people of color with the intent to enslave them in the criminal justice system by giving them felonies in which people of color are disenfranchise by society. The author calls this a “Racial Caste System” because it discriminates like it never has before, since it allows anyone who is labeled a “felon” to be legally discriminated against with housing, education, employment and voting rights. Since many more people of color are made felons than white by mass incarceration, racial discrimination is a powerful as it was under slavery or under the post-slavery era of Jim Crow

We have been fighting drug abuse for almost a century. The war on drugs is a growing problem in America everyday. This war is becoming an unfortunate loss. Our courts, hospitals, and prisons are continuously being filled with drug abusers. Violent crime the ravages our neighborhood is a result of the drug trade. Drug abusers’ children are neglected, abused, and even abandoned. In the 1870’s, anti-opium laws were first directed and Chinese immigrants. During the early 1900’s, in the South, the first anti-cocaine laws were directed at black men. In the 1910’s and 1920’s, in the Midwest and Southwest the first anti-marijuana laws were directed at Mexicans – both immigrants and Americans. In modern time, major disproportioned drug enforcement

The overcrowding of prisons in California and the rest of America is the result of “manufactured crime”. These are crimes which have no victim yet are considered felonies and follow the three strike law. Many people do not know that there are more incarcerated people in America than any other country on earth. According to the American Civil Liberties Union “America contains 5% of the world 's human population while also containing 25% of the world’s prison population. Since 1970, our prison population has risen by some 700% - an increase far outpacing rates of population growth and crime1”. The reason America has so many incarcerated people is not because Americans commit more crimes or the police are just better at finding criminals,

Alexander, M. (2010). The new Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. New

The United States has a larger percent of its population incarcerated than any other country. America is responsible for a quarter of the world’s inmates, and its incarceration rate is growing exponentially. The expense generated by these overcrowded prisons cost the country a substantial amount of money every year. While people are incarcerated for several reasons, the country’s prisons are focused on punishment rather than reform, and the result is a misguided system that fails to rehabilitate criminals or discourage crime. This literature review will discuss the ineffectiveness of the United States’ criminal justice system and how mass incarceration of non-violent offenders, racial profiling, and a high rate of recidivism has become a problem.

The American foreign policy on war on drugs is an important matter that came about in June of 1971 by President Richard Nixon. He increased the presence and the size of the federal drug control agencies. He also pushed for mandatory sentencing and no-knock warrants for the war on drugs. This is also when President Nixon put marijuana in schedule one, which is the most restrictive category for drugs. There were many things that led up to the why President Nixon put the American foreign policy for the war on drugs in place.

Although many things seemed good in the 1980’s, there was also issues plaguing America. The drug epidemic had by then spun completely out of control. The use of narcotics like cocaine, claimed many lives and earned widespread coverage by media and news. Following this Nancy Reagan began the “War on Drugs”, a campaign to combat pre-existing drug usage and prevent future

When Ronald Reagan and George Bush first declared a War on Drugs in America, they opened a bunch of chaos, crime, social injustice, and a lot of heartache in the black community. The Drug War policies and laws that was implemented, violates human rights, and force police officers to aggressively pursue nonviolent criminals. This system was perfectly designed to gain social control rather than relieve neighborhoods from drugs, which have a lot of citizens questioning was this a major success or failure. Since the war on drugs have been declared, Americans have experienced nothing but an elevated level of mass incarceration, while drugs and violence have reached an all-time high in our communities. The prisons in America are leading the world

Alexander describes the war on drugs as the new Jim Crow because of how its policies disproportionately target and affect African Americans-reinforcing and deepening racial divisions in America. She notes that there are currently more African Americans in correctional control today than there were enslaved in the 1850s, and that

The main reason why I chose to include this as a piece of evidence, was to show that there are steps in the system that are flawed. As the title of the article suggested, $2 roadside drug tests are performed on suspected drugs found inside the car. Many of these tests produce false positives, and yet prosecutors across the country still continue to use them. The kits cost around $2 each, and have changed little since 1973. The story also provided an example of a women name Amy Albritton that was a victim of this drug test, as an officer claimed that he had seen a crumb of crack-cocaine. The officer pulled out the drug test, and because of how cold it was that night, the cold weather slowed the colver development, throwing off a red flag in the officer 's eyes. Albritton was cuffed, and arrested for possession of crack cocaine, charges that were later dropped. Hopefully I will be able to integrate this into my essay, as it provides a prime example of how something so miniscule, can deeply affect someone 's life.

The Civil Rights Movement emerged in 1954, and the struggle to end segregation and discrimination began. There were many boycotts, sit ins, and protests aimed at destroying these Jim Crow laws and fighting for equality. During this time, white police officers were rarely prosecuted for killing African Americans. A significant incident that revealed the violent encounters between the police and the black community was the Birmingham Campaign in 1963. The commands of police commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor gained national attention when he sprayed peaceful demonstrators with powerful fire hose and unleashed police dogs on them. Among the victims of this racial violence were schoolchildren, who were broadcasted on national TV being attacked by dogs and