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Abstract on war on drugs
Causes and Consequences of war on drugs
Abstract on war on drugs
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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.
They began by introducing Berlin Boyd’s case and defining it as a vote that “pushed the need to do something different to aid African Americans in Memphis, to level economic disparities, and help keep them out of the criminal-justice-system quagmire” (Sells and Watts 276). The authors explain that when officers catch someone with marijuana, it is up to their discretion. They are allowed two choices: to issue a $50 fine or current state charge ($2,500 fine). By providing that comparison, it is evident to the reader that that is an unjust way to charge those with marijuana. The authors then show the statistics of the people who get arrested in previous years and state that “The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) says blacks in the Memphis area are 4.2 times as likely to be arrested for marijuana possession as a white person, though the two groups use marijuana at comparable rates” (277).
Although they both write about criminal justice, Michelle Alexander’s book mostly focuses the statistics on African Americans who are in prison and on War on Drugs in the United States. For example who would go to prison for having a little bit of marijuana a tall, innocent African American male ? or an average size , troublemaker white male? and many of us would believe an African American because based on his race right?
Since, the majority of African-Americans live in areas of drug involvement, they are more likely to be racially profiled and investigated. This has created an uneven ethnic ratio in prisons and produced stereotypes that affect children that prevent them from becoming abiding citizens.
She first supports her claim by chronicling America 's history of institutionalized racism and systematic disenfranchisement of African Americans. Then, she discusses America 's War on Drugs that disproportionately targets minorities and finally as she examines the hardship faced by felons she compares and contrasts Jim Crow Laws to mass incarceration. Alexander surmises that mass incarceration is designed to maintain white supremacy and sustain a racial classification system. Alexander 's book is relevant to my research paper because she provides evidence that the criminal justice system is rooted in racism and directly linked to the racist agenda of the white supremacist. Broussard, B. (2015).
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.
We live in a society where ethnic minorities are target for every minimal action and/or crimes, which is a cause to be sentenced up to 50 years in jail. African Americans and Latinos are the ethnic minorities with highest policing crimes. In chapter two of Michelle Alexander’s book, The Lockdown, we are exposed to the different “crimes” that affects African American and Latino minorities. The criminal justice system is a topic discussed in this chapter that argues the inequality that people of color as well as other Americans are exposed to not knowing their rights. Incarceration rates, unreasonable suspicions, and pre-texts used by officers are things that play a huge role in encountering the criminal justice system, which affects the way
Alexander notes that justice system has respect for the wisdom of police judgment, which often results in their arrests not being questioned. Through the tactic of consent searches, police officers are given the ammunition to make their arrests. They use traffic violations and drug sniffing dogs in order to search people and their property for drugs. The tactic of stop and frisk is also often employed, and is deemed acceptable if the officer has “probable cause” to stop the individual in the first place. Alexander points out that these tactics are mostly employed in poor, urban areas, because making an arrest is much easier since blacks tend to sell drugs more out in the
Students are taught to value numbers, statistics and efficiency in school rather than people. If law students take this sense of motivation into their practice, black women who commit drug offenses will be seen as another badge on a prosecutor’s jacket, rather than a person who is being taken away from their family. The
Life in Mexico can be very harsh, many people outside of Mexico believe life in the country isn’t as bad as it seems. Over the years the country has changed but still face many problems. The Mexican drug war is still a highly supplied conflict between the Mexican army and drug cartels in Mexico. The country has been one of the main suppliers of illegal drugs that causes discrimination, drug trafficking and many deaths yearly. The question is, how has life in Mexico changed before and after the war on drugs?
Since the Reagan administration, all proceeding presidents have continued to win votes by using this dog-whistle strategy. It sends abstract messages through coded language that sounds neutral on the surface, but plays on white resentment to minorities without appearing racially motivated (SG 16). The effectiveness of this strategy becomes obvious when reflecting on some statistics about drug usage and incarceration rates. Since 1983 when mass incarceration truly began escalating, African American incarceration has increased by 26 percent. This increase has caused approximately 80 to 90 percent of drug offenders currently in prison to be African American while no evidence exists that Blacks use or sell drugs any more than Whites (NJC).
The racialization of the “War on Drugs” campaign was particularly evident in the sentencing disparities between crack cocaine and powder cocaine. Crack cocaine—more commonly used by black and brown communities—was punished much more severely than powder cocaine—more commonly used by white populations. This disparity resulted in disproportionate sentencing for black and brown people, contributing to the disproportionate incarceration rates and criminalization of these people According to Danielle Kurtzleben of the U.S. News & World Report’s 2010 analysis on the U.S. Sentencing Commission figures, “79 percent of 5,669 sentenced crack offenders in 2009 were black, versus 10 percent who were white and 10 percent who were Hispanic. The figures for the 6,020 powder cocaine cases are far less skewed: 17 percent of these offenders were white, 28 percent were black, and 53 percent were Hispanic” (“Data Show Racial Disparity in Crack Sentencing”). Moreover, according to government data, “Drug use rates are similar among all racial and ethnic groups.
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
When there was a misdemeanor drug offence, black defendants were 27 percent more likely than whites to get a plea offer that included incarceration.” This shows unfairness
The date indicates that the Black share of drug crimes is almost exactly equal to the Black share of the population (2009). O’Hear explored different hypothesis and he stated for the second hypothesis, Blacks tend to commit more serious drug crimes than Whites. Blacks are arrested for more serious offenses, but that does not reflect a higher rate of commission of such offenses. The higher arrest rates may be due to racial profiling or the greater law enforcement presence in urban neighborhoods. "Researcher found that Whites were responsible for a majority of the drug distribution but the Blacks constituted a majority of who were arrested"