War On Drugs Promotes Racism

All through the nineties, nothing had changed. There still was the high rates of incarcerations and drugs were still making their way into the streets. When George W. Bush arrived at the White House the war on drugs had diminished yet he distributed more money than before presidents. The era of Bush saw a rapid increase of domestic militarization of domestic law enforcements. For instance, there would be around 50,000 paramilitary-style SWAT raids on Americans every year during the his reign. However of that 50,000 at least 40,000 were people of color and of the 40,000 there was nearly a ninety to hundred percent chance of prison time for nonviolent drug offenses. While the law enforcement was getting militarized they would primarily target

people of color and would often station themselves in these communities. For instance, in New York, the NYPD ( New York Police Department) they would conduct a policy of stop and frisk in which the police could detain a citizen and pat them leading to the officer to reasonably believe that the suspect is armed or dangerous. The issue with this is that police would target and detain people of color in most low income communities. Their primary reason is that they had an appearance of drug dealer or a gang member, which in most scenarios the suspect was either clean or was not affiliated with any gangs. The problem led to minorities having a straineded relationship with the higher law enforcements and most lead to police brutality because the suspect would not cooperate with the officers. And while the suspect would be clean, he would still end up in prison or some juvenile detention for refusing to cooperate with the police. The issue goes further than drugs, because if an officer pulls over people of color driving, the officer would say that they had surpassed the speed limit and while in the process would searched their vehicle for drugs assuming that the individual possessed drugs or weapons. Now the victim had to be trialled for the ticket and the possession of drugs even though he was clean.
Speaking of the police, the “war on drugs” has corrupted the whole institution of policing, specifically in black and Latino communities. To further clarify this claim, is that police officers are committing illegal searches, like stop and frisk. And while it was ruled unconstitutional, the police will still continue because they believe such activities are justified by necessity of winning the “war on drugs”. For instance, a former police officer from the fifties explains that during the heroin epidemic in Harlem, they would arrest everyone on sight and he claims that it wasn’t helping to reduce drug use or drug selling. Nothing has changed since then, because in the year 2001, state and local police made around two million arrests and almost none of them had search warrants. Since the police cannot cleanse the streets of illegal drugs, and since drug dealers find alternatives, the police resort to the informant and illegal searches. This is a major problem underlying police integrity throughout the United States. That unfortunately will continue because the law enforcement has become a revenue-raising agency that takes precedence over law enforcement. The “ War on Drugs” has become one of the top priorities that the police made 700,000 arrests for marijuana per year. The public is not really terrified of marijuana anymore because of recent studies show its benefits rather its misconceptions. People are afraid of molesters walking around freely near schools, children, and women, crimes like shootings and rape. The police are not putting the resources into crimes like the ones listed, where they could be effective if they were top priority. I mean it’s not only the law enforcement that has become corrupted, but the justice system too, like how can a rapist can walk off free, while a black teen possessing marijuana gets ten to fifteen years in prison. One possessed an actual threat to society, while one did not do anything that seemed to threat to the community. Recently , President Obama allocated two billion back into programs like the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act 2009. He wanted to show to the public that he is tough on crime and drugs because his pot-friendly remarks left a bad image of the white middle America. However, these programs have a troubled history like it ties, drug arrests to funding. In other words, the more arrests the more money. Most of the money goes towards drug task force that have a record of disproportionately arresting black men for possession. ( Michael w. Lynch “ The War on Drugs Has Corrupted Law Enforcements” and Jamie Chandler and Skylar Young “Marijuana Policies Simply need to be Refined”)
The drug war is an assault on the African American community or any community of color.

To be honest, if a police officer or any law enforcement used the tactics used in the inner cities against minorities in a white middle class neighborhood would be fired. The war on drugs is another tool to enslave African American and ensured their continued oppression writes Deborah Small the author of the article “The War on drugs Promotes Racism”. She continues saying that drug laws are enforced in a way that is racially biased in midst stating that blacks make up thirteen percent of drug users, seventy four percent of drug users sent to prison are people of color. She also claims that sentences for using or possessing crack cocaine-typically used by blacks- are hundred percent more harsh than than those using powdered cocaine, most commonly used by whites. It is relevant to understand the current prison-industrial complex to know that slavery held a preeminent position in America’s colonial society. With nearly 2 million people behind bars, it is undisputed to that today the principal engine driving the criminal justice system and the high rates of incarcerations is the United States government’s relentless and racist pursuit of the “War on Drugs.” The drug war has replaced slavery and segregation as the main method of maintaining America’s long history of racial oppression. She then presents a metaphor explaining how today's criminal justice system is like a pipeline of a slave ship, transporting human cargo along the trade routes from black and brown communities; through the middle passage of the police precincts, holding pens, detention centers and courtrooms; to downstate and upstate prisons; back to communities as unrehabilitated escapees, and back to prison cells in a vicious cycle. All in the stance of preventing drugs from the streets. If the government wants to combat drugs they should educate the youth not imprisoned them for almost their whole life. As I

previously stated the government allocated fifteen billion for law enforcements to a huge contrast of one billion, and while the education programs had improved since, the it led to a strain relationship between the whole institute of policing and people of color. In a country that was founded and advocated for equal rights for all, today policies are refusing that right for minorities in that one in every three Black men in their twenties is now in prison, probation, or parole. In seven states, blacks constitute between seventy five and ninety percent of all drug offenders are sent to prison, In New York, for example, at least ninety four percent of inmates incarcerated for drug offenses are either black or Latino. Black men are sent to prison for drug offenses at rates that are from twenty to fifty seven times greater than for white men. The disappropriate arrests-and media coverage-feed the misconception that blacks use drugs at much higher rates than whites and thus serve as justification for continued racial profiling in today’s society. She compares the overcrowded prison cells filled men and women of color as plantation sites. That’s a pretty harsh analogy, but unfortunately that’s the sad truth perfectly describing today's society. Almost half the 700,000 marijuana arrests are of Latinos. This outcome is no surprise because the unequal treatment of minority group members pervades at every stage of the criminal justice system. “Black and Latino Americans are victimized by disproportionate targeting and unfair treatment by police and other front-line law enforcement officials; by racially skewed charging and plea-bargaining decisions by prosecutors; by discriminatory sentencing practices; and by the failure of judges, elected officials, and other criminal justice policy-makers to redress the inequities that have come to permeate the system.”Federal financial support for education is no longer an option for many after a drug conviction. Two of the most populous states, New York and California, send more African-American and Latino men to prison each year than they graduate from colleges and universities. The government has sent a message that it prefers to incarcerate Black and Brown youth rather than to educate them. The war on drugs has caused tens of thousands of children are permanently separated from the love and guidance of parents who have been incarcerated for drug offenses. Most Americans would agree that punitive drug policies relying on harsh sentences would have been changed long ago if Whites were incarcerated on drug charges at the same rate as Blacks and Latinos. The inherent racism in America's enforcement of its drug policy has reached crisis proportions. As a result, there is a growing chorus of voices of African-American and Latino leaders who are challenging the political orthodoxy that public safety requires the incarceration of tens of thousands of Black and Brown people, mainly for nonviolent offenses. Parents and family members of incarcerated drug offenders are speaking out against laws that have stolen the lives of their loved ones at tremendous social and economic cost. ( Deborah Small “The War on Drugs Has Promoted Slavery”).