Causes Of Racial Disparity In Drug Discrimination

Racial disparity in drug related convictions has been a wide spread problem in the United States since the War on Drugs in the early 1980s. It was prevalent before that time, but minorities became the target of drug related crimes in startling numbers at this time. There are several hypotheses for this alarming situation, but the bottom line remains that racism is the leading cause of racial disparity in drug related convictions. Minorities from inner cities, with low-incomes and socioeconomic statuses who get caught in a downward spiral, are the easiest targets for the government to point the finger at for drug problems in the United States. The statistics will show that while more White people use illicit drugs in the United States, more African Americans and other minorities will be convicted, and more harshly than their White counterparts, for the same crimes.

Literature Review

National Institute on Drug Abuse Report

Spotlighting on drug abuse by specific ethnic group was a good start to research, as it shed some light on the actual drug problems by minority group. The study showed that African American teenagers have a lower rate of drug use compared to Whites, however they suffer from more drug-related health problems than any other ethnic group. It was also suggested that drug use is believed to cause criminal behavior in African American communities. Asians and Pacific Islanders may be less likely to pursue treatment services because they are not culturally appropriate. Higher rates of alcohol abuse are more likely in their native countries than in the United States because treatment options are more actively utilized. Hispanics drug use is one of the highest amongst US population, due in part...

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...e misdemeanor drug related crimes. It also points out how African Americans and Hispanics were treated more harshly when detained that Whites, if they had a public defender rather than a private defender, and whether they had a criminal record or not. Factors that also increased their conviction rate and treatment while in custody were being young, male and unemployed. African American and Hispanics were also more likely to be detained prior to arraignment, convicted, and sentenced to jail than whites.

While this journal shed some light on the racial disparity in the actual conviction process, the method used to gather the information for this journal only used three data sources. It gave factual statistics, but I would agree with the authors hypothesis that race/ethnicity could not be fully explained by controlling for an offender’s prior record, age, or gender.