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Racial Profiling: President Regan's War On Drugs

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Racial Profiling, though a 300-year-old problem for Blacks, became an even bigger problem during the “War on Drugs” carried forward from President Richard Nixon’s original declaration off a war on drugs in 1971(Alexander 48). Presidents Reagan, Bush Senior and Bush Junior and President Clintons neoliberal “war on drugs” over the years saw the number of people incarcerated in U.S. prison rise from 300,000 to 3.1 million mostly minority Black and Brown people in prison or on probation. A 2010, U.S. Bureau of Justice stats report showed that during the war on drugs era black men had an imprisonment rate of close to seven times the incarceration rate of white men, with the rate of incarceration for black women nearly triple that of white women …show more content…

Regan’s war on drugs was a partisan show of force by himself and carried over to the Republican administrations of Bush Senior Jr, including Democratic President Bill Clinton. The war on drugs policy was used to make people believe Regan’s racial containment strategy was premised on his concerns for the public safety of constituents who may fall victim to crimes committed by drug dealers and users. (Against Drug Prohibition) while it was widely reported Ronald Reagans’ son Ronnie Jr and former President George Bush jr, were both smoking weed and snorting …show more content…

(The only difference in the 20th century is there are no lynch mobs or black people hanging from trees on a daily basis). A new form of “convict leasing” also emerged as a direct effect of the mass incarceration of hundreds of black’s as racial profiling and black men’s subsequent incarceration for nonviolent drug offenses, saw Black men once again in the 21st century, and 300 years after Slave Patrols and Jim Crow, they again are subject harassment for vagrancy by mostly white police, due to no available jobs, severe unemployment, and unfair sentencing laws similar to “black codes” and “convict leasing” of 1865. Racialized practices that 152 years later find black men, while incarcerated performing and providing free penal labor to white corporation’s once again or making a meager minimum wage of sixteen cents an hour, due to the war on drugs, racial profiling and “mass incarceration” that has occurred from 1981 to present. All tenets of Regan’s “War on Drugs” laws and policies that as mentioned were purposely centered on poor urban and black neighborhoods, that were already stripped of jobs, resources, and vital human and public services (Alexander

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Nixon is infamous for his proposal of the “War on Drugs”— a crisis that made drug abuse seem more like a political issue and less of a health problem. This “war” essentially targeted minorities for drug possession, and combined the already standing issue of economic inequality and hypersegregation to allow people of color to be incarcerated at rates much higher than white people. This documentary targets political figures, ultimately holding them accountable for the unjust prison system. While some may think that this is political bias, all this document is doing is bringing up what people are afraid to address: some of the roots of systemic racism lie not so far in our past. By targeting political figures and comparing them to how mass incarceration developed as they were in office, 13th demonstrates a clear, concise understanding of systemic racism that allows the viewer to grasp the truth behind how the people who ran this country really

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Throughout chapters four, five and six of The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander, I gained a better understanding of the legacy of the war on drugs era policy and the function of the forms of oppression in the criminal justice system. In chapter four, Alexander focuses on the roles and legacy of racial discrimination in the criminal justice system. She conveys the fact that although newly freed incarcerated people may have more rights overall, they still arguably have less respect than newly freed enslaved people who were living ‘freely’ in Mississippi at the peak of the Jim Crow Era (Alexander 2010). She goes on to say that although Jim Crow may have been outlawed, new signs have gone up targeting society’s new legal form of second class citizens

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Synopsis 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. In chapter 1 of The New Jim Crow, Alexander (2010) suggests that the federal government can no longer be trusted to make any effort to enforce black civil rights legislation, especially when the Drug War is aimed at racial and ethnic minorities. In response to revolts formed between black slaves and white indentured servants, rich whites extended special privileges to their indentured servants that drove a wedge between them and the slaves that successfully stopped the revolts.

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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 the process, Nixon increased the federal government’s role in fighting crime, and pressed for mandatory sentencing and “no-knock warrants.” According to Alexander, “The War on Drugs proved popular among key white voters, particularly whites who remained resentful of black progress, civil rights enforcement, and affirmative action” (Alexander, 2010, p. 54). When the “War on Drugs” took place, it allowed whites to express their hostility towards the black culture and black progress, without being visible to the charge of racial discrimination (Alexander, 2010, p. 54). By declaring the War on Drugs, it was another structure that was targeting African American men. Certain drugs were associated with the black community, for instance, crack cocaine – a form of cocaine that can be smoked.

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Alexander argues that the system perpetuates a form of racial control akin to the Jim Crow laws of the past, primarily through the mass incarceration of Black men. She examines how policies such as the War on Drugs disproportionately target and incarcerate Black communities, creating a cycle of poverty and disenfranchisement. Through

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The writer projects that one-third of African-American population will be in prisons if the current trends continue. Alexander’s view that the current criminal justice system is discriminatory can be confirmed by the fact that whites are more likely to commit drug-related offenses than people of

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If, as Alexander suggests, the prison system will always be racist and designed to harm people of color, the end goal for repairing these injustices must be the abolition of prison — even a reformed version of prison would have the same racism at its core. Alexander’s account of the Southern Strategy and the War on Drugs serves as chilling evidence to support the claim that the carceral system is inherently racist. Incontrovertibly, White resentment toward Black Americans did not dissipate after Jim Crow. Identifying the (obvious) vitriol that remained among White as an effective way to motivate a voting Bloc, Presidential candidates such as Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan began campaigning for a so-called War on Drugs. Outwardly, this surge in rhetoric about drug crime was a call to protect people in cities from the dangers of drugs.

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In this documentary, scholars, activists and politicians analyze the criminalization of African Americans and the U.S. prison boom. One issue that was discussed in this video was a “war on drugs.” War on drugs was a war on color declared by President Nixon. The drug war produced unequal outcomes across racial groups, exhibited through racial discrimination by law enforcement and disproportionate drug war misery suffered by communities of color. I thought the issue that was discussed to be quite interesting because a lot has not changed.

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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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Annotated Bibliography Alexander, M. (2010). The new Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. New York: The New Press. Alexander opens up on the history of the criminal justice system, disciplinary crime policy and race in the U.S. detailing the ways in which crime policy and mass incarceration have worked together to continue the reduction and defeat of black Americans.

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At the start of the 1970s, incarceration appeared to be “a practice in decline.” One of the largest problems facing the world today is the mass incarceration of African Americans, where many arrest African Americans as they claim they appear more threatening. The government has done us wrong; it can avoid these consequences without the imprisonment of these innocent people for such diminutive crimes. These harsh conditions affect many more than just the families, communities, and individuals, but also the economy as confinement has tremendous costs on society. The sad but true reality proves that any White person can do things far more extreme than a “black person.”

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Like it is mentioned in the movie 13th “The so called war on drugs was a war on communities of color”. So, now black people are being arrested much more than White people even though the drug use is close to the same as Angela F. Chan points out in her article for the Huffington Post. “Even though Black people use drugs at the same rate as White people, they are incarcerated for drug crimes at 20 to 50 times the rate of White people in some states”. A law that was passed during the war on drugs was mandatory sentencing.

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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

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In addition to greatly affecting the otherwise unlikely citizens of America, Tough on Crime policies have greatly affected minority groups in America; perhaps more so than of any other group of citizens. To begin, from the 1980 on through the year 1995, the incarceration rates among drug offenders increased by more than 1000 percent. Notably, by the year 1995 one out of every four inmates in any given correctional facility was a drug offender. In addition of that 1000 percent increase, drug offenders accounted for more than 80 percent of the total growth in the federal inmate population and 50 percent of the growth of the state prison population from 1985 to 1995 (Stith, web). In addition, once in the system, the probability of receiving harsher

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