The Incarceration And War On Drugs

2025 Words5 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Racial Discrimination in the Criminal Justice System

This essay will be focusing on the incarceration and war on drug of black community and minority in the United State. The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander discuss who the war on drug effect minority in American. What will be discuss in this paper or the question I will be answering are How has the War in Drugs impacted low-income people and communities of color, particularly African Americans? How has the Drug War disenfranchised a large segment of the American population? How have race and class influenced the functioning of the criminal justice system, especially in relation to policing, the enforcement of drug laws, and sentencing? Do you agree or disagree with Alexander’s contention that the current criminal justice system has resulted in a “New Jim Crow”? Why or why not? How has the War in Drugs impacted low-income people and communities of color, particularly African Americans? The war on drugs have made it difficulties for people to find jobs and be able to survive. When your arrested for drugs your label as a felon, making it difficult to receive benefit that everyone should have such housing, employment, food stamps, and licenses. This also doesn’t allow them to vote for 12 years or forever. Which then lead people back to the street with nothing and or selling drug to survive or make a living. Then it just become a cycle of drugs and jail, over and over again. “According to a bureau of justice statistics study, about 30 percent of released prisoners in its sample were rearrested within six months of release. Within three years, nearly 68 percent were rearrested at least once for a new offense.” (Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. pg. 94) Since they are una... ... middle of paper ... ...o find jobs and get the help you need to get back on your feet. Which cause them to have to sell drug or find other illegal ways to survive. Race and class have played a big role in the criminal justice system. The criminal justice system need to be fix and we need to lower the incarceration and give equal time in jail for the crimes they committee. People especially minority when it comes time for justice, white people get lower sentences then they do. The New Jim Crow of the criminal system will continue and strongly feel that this will cause major problem in the near future. Until we as people united to change the system and help people to find jobs and give them the help they need to start over and fresh. We as people will suffrage this great economy downward spiral and have a broken unfair system. we can’t change the big things until we change what affect them.

Show More
Related

  • Analysis of the New Jim Crow by Professor Michelle Alexander

    761 Words  | 2 Pages

    The final chapter of The New Jim Crow reviews the manner in which the Black community might respond to the racism that exists today. Some research implies that we in America have reached a point of attrition as to incarceration and the positive effects outweighing the negative effects of marginalization and collateral damage to the community. By some research, the "War on Drugs" procreates poverty, joblessness, family breakdown, and crime.

    Read More

  • How Policing And Incarceration Affect Inequalities In Society?

    1802 Words  | 4 Pages

    The work by Victor M. Rios entitled Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys and Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness depict ways in which policing and incarceration affect inequalities that exist in society. In this body of work I will draw on specific examples from the works of Victor M. Rios and Michelle Alexander to fulfill the tasks of this project. Over the course of the semester and by means of supplemental readings, a few key points are highlighted: how race and gender inequalities correlate to policing and incarceration, how laws marginalize specific groups, and lastly how policing and incarceration perpetuate the very inequalities that exist within American society.

    Read More

  • Mass Incarceration Essay

    1001 Words  | 3 Pages

    Most black Americans are under the control of the criminal justice today whether in parole or probation or whether in jail or prison. Accomplishments of the civil rights association have been challenged by mass incarceration of the African Americans in fighting drugs in the country. Although the Jim Crow laws are not so common, many African Americans are still arrested for very minor crimes. They remain disfranchised and marginalized and trapped by criminal justice that has named them felons and refuted them their rights to be free of lawful employment and discrimination and also education and other public benefits that other citizens enjoy. There is exists discernment in voting rights, employment, education and housing when it comes to privileges. In the, ‘the new Jim crow’ mass incarceration has been described to serve the same function as the post civil war Jim crow laws and pre civil war slavery. (Michelle 16) This essay would defend Michelle Alexander’s argument that mass incarcerations represent the ‘new Jim crow.’

    Read More

  • Reflection Of The New Jim Crow By Michelle Alexander

    793 Words  | 2 Pages

    The fact that War on Drugs and incarceration is a rebirth of caste of America, is correct. If you are African- American you will go to prison because of the caste system. People choice to be what they want to be. Yet Michelle point is correct, human beings need to realize everyone is different. Problems are created because one it creates them. Also we talked about the nullification system in class, and is one way in solving racism in the justice system and the government. Michelle Alexander uses statistic through the book. She explains the difference from 1990s to today’s world. This makes it easier for the reader to tell the contrast.

    Read More

  • The War on Drugs: The House I live In Documentary

    927 Words  | 2 Pages

    Ultimately the question that we should ask,have we as a nation approach the war on drugs fairly ? Is the war on drugs about the drug or is it about our people? I can honestly say with my head held high its not about the drug but about the people. .We as a nation don't gain anything if we strip our people from their rights and abandoned them. As Lisa D. Moore, DrPH and Amy Elkavich, BA noted, “Everyone should be able to access quality health care and education inside and out of prison. We should support ex-felons after their prison terms in their attempts to find meaningful employment, housing, and education.” We all live under one nation and should strive to be the best nations and allowing people to seize our rights as citizen is irrational. We need to step up and ask for change!

    Read More

  • Mass Incarceration of African Americans

    2058 Words  | 5 Pages

    “Until justice is blind to color, until education is unaware of race, until opportunity is unconcerned with the color of men's skins, emancipation will be a proclamation but not a fact.”(Lyndon Johnson). For generations in the United Stated, ethnic minorities have been discriminated against and denied fair opportunity and equal rights. In the beginning there was slavery, and thereafter came an era of racism which directly impacted millions of minorities lives. This period called Jim Crow was the name of the racial caste system up in till mid 1960s. Jim Crow was more than just a series of severe anti-Black laws, it became a way of life. Under Jim Crow, African Americans were positioned to the status of second class citizens. What Jim Crow did is represented the anti-Black racism. Further on, In 1970’s the term “War on Drugs” was coined by President Richard Nixon . Later President Ronald Reagan officially declared the current drug war. In reality the war had little to do with drug crime and a lot to do with racial politics. The drug war was part of a strategy of used by the government. The President identified drug abuse as national threat. Therefore, they called for a national anti-drug policy, the policy began pushing for the involvement of the police force and military in drug prohibition efforts. The government did believe that blacks or minorities were a cause of the drug problem. They concentrated on inner city poor neighborhoods, drug related violence, they wanted to publicize the drug war which lead Congress to devote millions of dollars in additional funding to it. The war on drugs targeted and criminalized disproportionably urban minorities. There for, “War on Drugs” results in the incarceration of one million Americans ...

    Read More

  • Racialized Mass Incarceration in America

    622 Words  | 2 Pages

    Another reason racialized mass incarceration takes place is because of the high rates of poverty and unemployment for inner city African Americans, especially those with low-education and low skill levels. Urban ghettos have been associated with the problem of social disorganization and crime. The biggest reason for this is the war on drugs. There is no substantial proof that verifies African Americans are more involved in illegal drug consumptions than other groups are. However they are arrested more than other groups. Bobo and Thompson stated that blacks are almost 34% involved in drug-related arrests though only 14% of those are among regular illegal drug users. Among drug related convictions, African Americans make up half of the cases whereas only 26% of the white population is convicted. As Bobo and Thompson stated, “Illegal drug consumption seems to know no race. Incarceration for drug-related charges, however, is something visited in a heavily biased manner on African Americans.”

    Read More

  • The Tipping Point in the War on Drugs

    1843 Words  | 4 Pages

    As described in novel The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference the course of any trend, movement, social behavior, and even the spread of a virus has a general trend line that in essence resemble a parabola with 3 main critical points. Any trend line first starts from zero, grows until it crosses the first tipping point, and then spreads like wildfire. Afterwards, the trend skyrockets to its carrying capacity (Galdwell, 2000). Then the trend gradually declines before it reaches the next tipping and suddenly falls out of favor and out of memory. Gladwell defines tipping points as the “magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire” (Gladwell, 2000).

    Read More

  • Mass Incarceration Essay

    754 Words  | 2 Pages

    According to the Oxford Index, “whether called mass incarceration, mass imprisonment, the prison boom, or hyper incarceration, this phenomenon refers to the current American experiment in incarceration, which is defined by comparatively and historically extreme rates of imprisonment and by the concentration of imprisonment among young, African American men living in neighborhoods of concentrated disadvantage.” It should be noted that there is much ambiguity in the scholarly definition of the newly controversial social welfare issue as well as a specific determination in regards to the causes and consequences to American society. While some pro arguments cry act as a crime prevention technique, especially in the scope of the “war on drugs’.

    Read More

  • Adaptive Discrimination In The Criminal Justice System

    1450 Words  | 3 Pages

    The rise of mass incarceration further eroded civil rights progress by destabilizing urban communities. The “war on drugs” ensnared countless African Americans in the criminal justice system at significantly higher rates than whites, at a time when drug crimes as a whole were declining. Felon disfranchisement laws and, in some states, the use of gerrymandering techniques that treat prisoners as residents of the prison’s jurisdiction, rather than as residents of their home communities, continue to undermine African Americans’ political power and

    Read More

  • The Impact Of The Politicization Of Criminal Justice

    1117 Words  | 3 Pages

    Some of the most important historical developments that Beckett (1997) attributed to the politicization of criminal justice practices and policies were beginning with the civil rights movement. There was a tremendous amount of discourse occurring during this time about whether or not African Americans should have the same rights as whites. As well as, the thought that many African Americans were responsible for the increase in crime. Therefore, in the political sector we saw a power struggle between the Democrats and the Republicans. The Republicans wanted to portray the issues that crime and drug use were increasing rapidly due to the way the African Americans were raised.

    Read More

  • What Role Did The War On Drugs Play In The Mass Incarceration

    342 Words  | 1 Pages

    The War on Drugs has played a significant role in the mass incarceration seen today. The War on Drugs refers to heightened law enforcement activity and harsher punishments in order to eliminate illegal drug use. It started in the 1970’s when President Richard Nixon proclaimed that “public enemy number one in the United States is drug abuse,” and “to fight and defeat this enemy is necessary to wage a new, all-out offensive.” Since then the number of people admitted to prison for drug related crimes has risen about 1000 percent (politifact.com). “Most Americans can now agree that the war on drugs was not an effective approach to either addressing drug related crime, and that its policies worsened racial disparities in incarceration (Nellis).”

    Read More

  • The New Jim Crow Laws

    1077 Words  | 3 Pages

    The War on Drugs has not deterred the use or sale of narcotics in this country and has instead only singled out people, defined by their race. Alexander compares the mass incarceration of minorities under harsh treatment by police enforcement and court systems as the new form of the south’s Jim Crow laws. The epidemic of crack cocaine in inner cities that forced Reagan’s hand to begin the Drug War only fueled mass imprisonment of African-Americans when in contradiction, whites and any other racial group for the matter, also engage in such criminal activity. Alexander puts estimates that whites may actually use drugs more frequently in proportion to their population. But the enforcement selectively hurts minorities more frequently than it hurts

    Read More

  • The Failure of the War on Drugs

    1021 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the early 1980s, policymakers and law enforcement officials stepped up efforts to combat the trafficking and use of illicit drugs. This was the popular “war on drugs,” hailed by conservatives and liberals alike as a means to restore order and hope to communities and families plagued by anti-social or self-destructive pathologies. By reducing illicit drug use, many claimed, the drug war would significantly reduce the rate of serious nondrug crimes - robbery, assault, rape, homicide and the like. Has the drug war succeeded in doing so?

    Read More

  • Mass Incarceration: The New Jim Crow's Legacy

    1005 Words  | 3 Pages

    She claims the War on Drugs extends beyond the legal system affecting African American communities in terms of work, housing, welfare, and other necessities (Alexander 138). After prison, felons return to society only to find that many of their rights have been redacted without their knowledge. Often, they will have difficulty acquiring a job; the government denies public housing to all felons without a job and without public housing, many will become homeless (Alexander 56). This argument focuses on the denial of rights to former felons; Alexander believes that this system mimics the Jim Crow laws. Some scholars dispute this argument claiming that today it would be more difficult to create a system in which could fully define the entire race (Forman 58). The Jim Crow laws defined what it meant to be African American, but the War on Drugs cannot. In any system there exist outliers, Alexander’s argument focuses primarily on impoverished African Americans living in ghettos. The ‘segregation’ Alexander argues for exists primarily in a metaphorical sense due to the discretion of the legal

    Read More

More about The Incarceration And War On Drugs

Open Document