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Analysis Of 13th Duvernay

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The documentary 13th focuses on past policies and presidents that have led to a broken criminal justice system. Duvernay focuses on policies made by president and companies such as ALEC throughout the documentary (Privatized corporation for profit prisons). There are many aspects to why the criminal justice system is broken, but the War on Drugs really pushed the corruption. President Richard Nixon created the War on Drugs policy in order to stop drug addiction throughout the United States, instead, the policy gave the authorities a legal way to target minorities. The War on Drugs was implemented 46 years ago by Richard Nixon and is still going to this day. Although Nixon created the law, it really started to come in effect when Ronald Reagan became president. In 1986, Nancy Reagan started the “Just Say No” campaign, an anti-stance throughout the United States. The policy really started to deteriorate when police officers started to abuse the law and started to minorities. The policy was really strict and “nearly 80 …show more content…

According to the article, The Drug War, Mass Incarceration, and Race “ Black people comprise 13 percent of the U.S. population,10 and are consistently documented by the U.S. government to use drugs at similar rates to people of other races.11 But black people comprise 31 percent of those arrested for drug law violations,12 and nearly 40 percent of those incarcerated”. Despite the fact that colored people are minorities in the country still, make up 1/3 of the people arrested because of the drug policy. The policy effective created to target the minorities by making the cocaine the main focus of the drug. “America of the poor, where, amid hopelessness and lack of education, people will suffer the worst consequences of cocaine”(Kerr, 1) which in many poor communities lived the colored minorities, this made it easier for the police officer to target and arrest the

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During the 1980s and 1990s, the federal government applied many methods of responding to the crack epidemic in minority neighborhoods. For instance, as a result of the War on Drugs, “drug arrests in Baltimore jumped 72 percent, compared to 99,561 arrests in the 1980s and 171,348 in the 1990s.” (Miller). The War on Drugs in Baltimore drives and contributes to the rampant drug arrests by creating an environment where drugs and drug use are widespread. Additionally, “homicides peaked at a city record of 353 in 1995.”

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The documentary argues that the War on Drugs was a thinly veiled attempt to criminalize Black communities and disrupt the Civil Rights Movement. The film also examines the role of the media in perpetuating stereotypes of Black people as dangerous and

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She points out that in some states, 80-90% of those sent to prison on drug charges are African American. This enormous discrepancy cannot be blamed either on black culture or “old-fashioned,” deliberate racism. Rather, much of the racial injustice of mass incarceration can in fact be attributed to unconscious bias. This is made worse by laws that may appear to be race-neutral on the surface, but in fact operate in deeply racist ways; this includes the one hundred-to-one ratio in sentencing recommendations for crack versus powder cocaine. Whereas there is little substantial difference between the two forms of cocaine, crack is more closely associated with black people—and carries sentences a hundred times longer than powder cocaine, which is generally associated with wealthy whites.

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Analysis: Michelle Alexander's "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness" aims to bring attention to the racial caste system that exists within the American justice system, particularly in the context of mass incarceration of African Americans. Alexander argues that although America has moved past Jim Crow segregation laws, it has not moved past the racist system of oppression that existed during that era. Instead, a new caste system has emerged, with the American justice system serving as its primary mechanism for the maintenance of racial hierarchy. To support this thesis, Alexander details how the War on Drugs, initiated during the Reagan era, has resulted in an explosion of the prison population in America, particularly among people of color. She argues that the

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In Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow: The Age of Colorblindness, she argues that the debate on the war on drugs unfairly targets those of color; typically young, black men. She states how many African Americans have been in prison due to drug convictions and now carry the title of a felon with them for life. Alexander recognizes that the war on drugs was a policy with an attempt to crack down on drugs in certain communities, however, she still believes these policies target minorities. She supports this with the “stop and frisk” policy, which grants the officers with the ability to search individuals on their own natural “suspicion.” It is most obvious that poor black men are more likely to be stopped over white individuals.

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In chapter three, Alexander argues that the structure of the drug war is designed in such a way, that it guarantees that its victims will consist of people from the society's undercaste. To begin with, Alexander states that there are two primary ways, in which an essentially “colorblind”criminal justice system can operate in such a discriminatory manner. The first way is by giving the police immense amounts of discretion to which they can choose whom to stop, question, frisk, search, and arrest. According to Alexander, African Americans, who became the victim of the media’s “criminalblackman” portrayal were once again victimized by law enforcement personnel that targeted them on due to their bias’ in believing that all African Americans were

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The article explores the historical context of drug laws and policies in the U.S. and their disproportionate impact on black communities. It emphasizes the negative effects of the war on drugs on black families, communities, and overall socio-economic mobility, perpetuating the enduring inequalities faced by Americans of color. The article relates to course concepts such as the effects of residential segregation, which has contributed to the development of underclass communities in the United States, and how these communities are disproportionately affected by the criminal justice system. Additionally, the article highlights the systemic racism and discrimination that has existed in the United States, perpetuating the inequalities faced by people of color. It discusses how drug laws have been used as a tool to target and criminalize people of color, while white drug users and sellers have largely been ignored or given lesser punishments.

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However, black men are arrested and charged for drug offenses at, “rates twenty to fifty times greater than those of white men” (Alexander, 2010). This discrepancy raises questions as to why are black men targeted for drug offenses more than all other races when black people use and sell drugs at similar rates as the other demographics. Mass incarceration stemmed from the influx of arrests made in the 1980’s and 90’s; these hordes of people put into prisons means more than just time behind

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Wes Moore examines the affect of drugs in not only his community but other predominantly African American communities as well. “There was so much money to be made that… turf wars became deadly… In 1990, there was 2,605 [homicides in New York City] … and the victims were concentrated in a single demographic: young black men.” (51) As the demand for drugs heightened in the 70s, so did the supply, leading to greater and stronger drug rings.

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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.

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Racial profiling, poverty and high crime rates are the major contributors to high incarceration rates for African Americans compared to their percent of the general population. Besides social and economic isolation, African Americans have been marked as inherently criminal with the war on drugs and crime targeting them even when the statics shows they are less likely to be in possession of cocaine for example (Walker, Spohn, DeLone, 2012). The high number of African Americans on death row is the result of institutional racism. Majority of the judges in the United States are white and more often than not are either implicitly or explicitly biased in their rulings (Walker, Spohn, DeLone, 2012).

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The government publicized the emergence of crack cocaine as defense strategy to create a favorable public opinion for the drug war: “The media was saturated with images of black crack whores, crack dealers, and crack babies—images that seemed to conform the worst negative racial stereotypes about impoverished inner-city residents” (Alexander, 5). During the war, arrests and convictions for drug offenses saw an amazing increase, especially among African Americans. Because of the drug war, the United States now holds the highest incarceration rate in the world even surpassing more the world’s most suppressive nations. No other country imprisons more of their racial or ethnic minorities than the United States does: “The United States imprisons a larger percentage of its black population than South Africa did at the height of Apartheid” (Alexander, 6). The War on Drugs fueled mass imprisonment in the United States in which African American were the main victims.

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Introduction Michelle Alexander’s article, “In Legalizing Marijuana, End the Racial Bias,” was published in May 2013 by the New York Times online. In this article, the author asserts that there is a correlation between the “war on marijuana” and racial profiling, creating an endemic of racial disparities. The author suggests that when the system punishes someone in possession of marijuana, more particularly a colored youth, they become a “second-class” citizen. Their rights are reduced exponentially and are “discriminated against legally” and labeled as criminals. This leaves them at a major disadvantage at an early age.

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In 2002, black Americans constitute over 80% of those who are sentenced for drug-related offenses even though more than 2/3 of cocaine users are actually white or

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The drug trade is sometimes the only company or business to work for in extremely impoverished communities and the U.S government is punishing people for working for the only business in their area, and their only way to acquire a stable income. If drugs like marijuana were not so relentlessly hunted by the local police and DEA, the U.S could see a lot of people in these communities turn their illegal drug hustles into legitimate businesses leading to less violence in these communities and less people falling victim to a system meant to protect them like Dennis. Michelle Alexander further proves the disproportionate effect the War on Drugs has had on black communities when she compares numbers between pre-slavery America and the current America she sees when she looks around. Michelle has a Law degree from Stanford and has served for several years as director of the Racial Justice Project. She proves her prowess and knowledge in the subject of racial disparity in the United states when she states “More African American men are in prison or jail, on probation or parole than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before

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