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Anti Drug Abuse Act Of 1986 Essay

916 Words4 Pages

The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 was a law that was signed by President Ronald Reagan on October 27, 1986. This law was what officially began the all-out war on drugs that is still being fought today by local, state and federal law enforcement agencies across the United States and internationally. This particular Act has been one of the leading cause of mass incarceration of both men and women in America. The prison population has almost quadrupled since 1980 to 2000 due to strict laws against drug dealers, drug traffickers, and users. Each year, the overall prison population surpassed the 1 million mark (Lurigio & Loose, 2008). As a result of the war on drugs, the total number of individuals incarcerated went from 581,000 in 1980 to 1,584,000 by 1997. Strict drug laws have caused incarceration rates to escalate at an alarming pace over the last 40 years.
According to the Bureau of Justice Statics, in 1996 the African American incarceration rate was 1,574 per 100,000, seven times higher than the rate for Whites. Researchers have discovered that the war on drugs has led to the overcrowding of African Americans in the prison system (Lurigio & Loose, 2008). One of the reasons for the overpopulation of Blacks in America’s criminal justice system is because of the different sentencing laws between powder cocaine and crack cocaine. The United …show more content…

Also, researchers have discovered a huge sentencing disparity between powder cocaine and crack cocaine and its effect against African Americans, but not many studies have incorporated women and how children are being impacted by mass incarceration in the United States. Women, especially African American women, have been the invisible victims of the war on drugs and mass incarceration. According to various feminist criminologist, the war on drugs has actually been a “war against

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