War On Drug Policing Research Paper

Doris Marie Provine writes her book, Unequal under law: Race in the War on Drugs, to inform her audience that race plays a key role in the War on Drugs. She writes about how this war has become a war on race rather than a war intended to improve drug abuse. Provine begins her book with some background on the first account of the “war on drugs”. She describes how the prohibition age was the beginning of this war which targeted women and blacks. In Unequal under law, Provine explains how different race groups have been given crime labels. Africans have been labeled as the cocaine abusers, Mexicans are known as the weed smokers, and Chinese are deemed the opium addicts. She argues that the government supported the war on drugs although it knew

Critics argue that legalization of certain drugs will not end the drug war and that instead, it will cause more violence and issues for the county’s well being. In the mid-1980’s the cocaine epidemic hit and a large amount of crime, deaths from overdoses and violence came with it. The result of this was laws being placed with minimum punishment for drug trafficking to attempt to control the issue. Throughout the early 1990s crime started to slowly decrease and in 2013 the amount of crime was reduced in half. One viewpoint is that once the title of being non-violent labeled drug traffickers crime started to rise anew. Some crimes included murders of innocent bystanders and more drug flow into the U.S (Cook1). William J. Bennett and John P. Walters, Boston Globe writers, complicate matters further when they write “For 25 years before President Obama, U.S policy confronted drug

The Drug Policy Alliance is an organization dedicated to making reforms to US drug laws, abolishing the failed the war on drugs, and advocating for harm reduction strategies. Located on their website, the article "Race and the Drug War", cites several troubling statistics and everyday realities that link the drug war to racism and discrimination. Among these, the fact that despite the rates of drug use being similar across racial lines, black Americans are more than three times as likely to be arrested for drug crimes. This is due to the fact that low-income, predominantly black neighborhoods are heavily patrolled for drug activity while higher-income neighborhoods are less scrutinized. The aim of the article is meant to persuade the reader

The war on drugs then shifted focus and targeted minorities as the causes of crime, and used drugs as a mechanism to maintain unjust policing. The author addresses several statistical figures pointing out the United States as having the highest incarceration rates in the world, and the majority of those incarcerated being minorities incarcerated for simple drug crimes. The author also quotes another author who points out that when the war on drugs was declared there was not a drug crisis, however, with the support of media and politicians the war was pushed for and targeted minorities. In targeting minority groups the article also describes how minorities that were targeted suffered a mental imprisonment. This mental imprisonment is also perpetuated through the stereotypes of the “Criminal black man,” that currently marginalizes minorities in our current

“ Drug war's emphasis on law enforcement takes a toll on police.”  Wall Street Journal (1923 - Current File), January 11, 1991. Accessed March 25, 2017. Historical Newspapers.

The war on drugs during the 1980s to present has become a center of attention for the American governments’ foreign and domestic policy. Though the idea to clean up Americas streets sounds convincing, the truth is, it’s not. Hence, the War on Drugs is seen as a situation of the war within our government and institutionalizing the streets of America, in other words, the separation against certain groups to possess a certain radical objective. Although most are unaware, race and the declaration to the War on Drugs has played a vital role in marginalizing the communities as a target. In return those, mostly of African American decent, are expose tot the institutions and police control within neighborhoods. In addition, the Drug War has been a

The war on Drugs played a heavy role in minority American society. It affected policing and most importantly the American minority people. The war on drugs started by President Nixon and up until President Bush was a disaster that affected America with high incarceration and high recidivism rates for low level and non-violent drug offenses that mainly targeted minorities in America. The war on drugs was a massive American failure that mainly affected minorities. President Obama and his drug reform alongside the American public’s strong opinion to switch towards marijuana reform which we see in places like Colorado and Washington has caused the war on drugs to lose steam. The American public’s decision for drug reform is no surprise after nearly 40 years of the unsuccessful war on drugs.

There is a war going on. It is a war that has targeted, jailed, and killed millions of Americans. To see its profound impact, one does not even need to leave our nation 's borders. It is a civil war, that Consists of the U.S. Government, versus our country 's minority communities. It has spanned multiple generations and numerous presidential administrations. Declared by President Richard M. Nixon in June, 1971, the war on drugs has been one lost at great cost. In this paper, the argument will be presented that the war on drugs was a war on minority communities by disproportionately negatively affecting them through means of mass incarceration, ignoring a massive unknown disease, and gentrification.

Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, explained how our treatment of criminals has created a new racial caste system, and the only way to make change is by massive social change and Civil Rights movement. The criminal laws often focus on psychoactive drugs used by the minority populations. Minorities are disproportionately targeted, arrested, and punished for drug offenses. For instance, Black, Latino, Native American, and many Asian were portrayed as violent, traffickers of drugs and a danger to society. Surveillance was focused on communities of color, also immigrants, the unemployed, the undereducated, and the homeless, who continue to be the main targets of law enforcement efforts to fight the war on drugs. Although African Americans comprise only 12.2 percent of the population and 13 percent of drug users, they make up 38 percent of those arrested for drug offenses and 59 percent of those convicted of drug offenses causing critics to call the war on drugs the “New Jim Crow”(drug policy). The drug

The United States is known to have the highest incarceration rate in the world and the vast majority of prisoners are convicted of drug related crimes. Today, one cannot think of law enforcement without thinking about drugs. The more drugs are thought of as a police problem the less drugs are seen as a health related problem. If drugs were framed as a public health problem, the United States would observe a different policing practice. The way drugs are perceived and prohibited have many similarities to the alcohol prohibition and one can see that prohibition is not an effective method. The focus on prohibition has deliberately created different policing methods and inadvertently increased crime, changed the function of policing, and has made

These people believe the war on drugs should not be viewed as a war against a particular collection of inanimate objects, but a convenient, yet inaccurate, representation. To ones that oppose the War on Drugs being all about race, they believe it should be understood as a special case of what war has always been-the engagement of force and violence against certain communities, and/or their institutions, in order to attain certain political objectives. Race has played an important role over the years in identifying the communities that became the targets of the drug war, consequently exposing their cultural practices and institutions to military-style attack and police control. Although the drug war has certainly sought to eradicate controlled substances and destroy the systems recognized for their circulation, this is only part of the story. Ones with this state of mind believe that state efforts to control drugs are also a way for dominant groups to express racial power. Overall, the significance of the drug trade and the oppression of African people and other people of color, they believe one must recognize the central role that drug trafficking has played and the maintenance of white supremacy worldwide. Addictive and harmful substances have historically been used to undermine societies and further white

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.

The essay “Let’s Be Blunt” was written to show the flaws and failure of the war on drugs. I nits intro the essay takes a very pro drug legalization stance Caden states””. Early on the author compares the current drug war to prohibition, the banning of alcohol decades ago. Caden compares the current drug related crime to the massive amount of crime that arose during prohibition. He claims that the bans on these substances are what cause the crime not the drug themselves. By having drugs do illegal it results in people have to resort to using underground and dangerous methods to obtain them which they clearly are willing to do. Next an argument is presented against the way the government goes about fighting this war. Stating that the government focus its efforts on catching “Mr. Big” a theoretical mastermind drug dealer responsible for the vast majority if drug sales. However such a person does not exist. Finally

According to Michelle Alexander, why and how has the “war on drugs” developed over the last 40 years? What are the main political and economic factors that led to the war on drugs, and what are the main political and economic factors that shaped it as it developed over the last four decades? Draw on material from the Foner textbook chapters 25 through 28 to supplement Alexander’s discussion of the political and economic context.

Throughout history, the drug war has always targeted minority groups. “At the root of the drug-prohibition movement in the United States is race, which is the driving force behind the first laws criminalizing drug use, which first appeared as early as the 1870s (Cohen, 56)”. There were many drug laws that targeted minority groups such as the marijuana ban of 1930s that criminalized Mexican migrant farm workers and in the Jim Crow South, reformist wanted to wage war on the Negro cocaine feign so they used African Americans as a scapegoat while they overlooked southern white women who were a bigger problem for the drug epidemic (Cohen, 57). Instead of tackling the root of the drug problem they passed the blame to struggling minority groups within the United States.