Abstract
Since the declaration of war on drugs, the minority groups, who are also the low-income communities, have experienced mass incarceration. While the war on drugs is essential for the society to eliminate illicit drugs, there is an overrepresentation of the minority in the prisons over drug-related crimes. This paper examines how law enforcement and the war on drugs creates a social injustice against the minority and the low-income communities.
Introduction
The drug policies and the war on drugs falls hard on the minority groups than it does to the whites. This has always been evident in the number of mass incarceration where the minorities have been targeted than their white counterparts. There is a claim of racial prejudice when dealing with drugs where the African Americans become the key target for the law enforcement officers despite statistics showing that the rate of drug use and possession is almost equally amongst the whites and blacks. Many federal and state prisons are filled with up to 62% of the minorities, especially African Americans compared to the 38% of the whites ( Lassiter, 2015 ). This does not mean the blacks use illegal drugs more than the whites, but the drug policies and the war on drug has a racial prejudice and preformed assumption that minority groups are drug criminals than their white counterparts.
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War on Drug and the Minority
According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health report of 2013, 9.5% of the whites were reported to use illicit drugs compared to the 10.5% of the blacks ( Thomas, 2013 ). Despite the smaller difference in the rates at which the blacks and whites use illegal drugs, the number of blacks who get arrested for illicit drugs is five times that of the whites. These statistics show how the war on drugs is based on racial prejudice, mainly targeting the minority. The war on drugs has created racial disparities in the justice system leading to mass incarceration of the minority yet it has failed to meet its target of curtailing drug abuse and trafficking. African Americans remain far more likely to be arrested and jailed for drug-related offenses than the whites even though the whites are equally more likely to sell and use drugs. Another report by the National Survey on Drug Use and Health shows that 6.6% of the white youth sold drugs in 2012, compared to the 5% of the black youth ( Thomas, 2013 ). The statistics show that even though more people of color get targeted for drug crimes, the whites still have a higher rate of drug use. The existence of racial disparities in the justice system has unfairly led to the arrests and imprisonment of blacks thus creating a lot of social injustice. Justice system should be fair, and the laws should not intend to target a particular group more than the other groups as this amounts to injustice in the application of the law.
Although the United States has made some progress in the war against drugs, it remains racially segregated. It is not surprising that poor people and the minority have disproportionately been incarcerated during the massive increase in imprisonment since the 1980s. Many blacks remain in jail for drug-related crimes, some of who were even wrongly accused ( Snyder, 2015 ). Lately, criminologists have started a debate on race and justice, with the central theme being how the increasing incarceration of the minority a consequence of the biased criminal justice system. The minority groups continue to be overrepresented in the US prisons, and many are handed long jail term than their whites for the same account of the crime or lesser. Evidence to prove the bias in the criminal justice system and the war on drugs is the percentage of the minority who sell drugs versus the whites. About 13% of the drug sellers are African Americans, 17% are Latino, and approximately 60% are whites ( Snyder, 2015 ). However, people of color who are in prisons for selling drugs are more than 50%. Also, the whites who get jailed for selling drugs tend to receive a lesser jail term compared to the minority who are always handed long-term imprisonment even for minor drug offenses. A study by the Human Rights Watch shows that blacks are 13 times more likely to be sentenced for drug charges than the whites.
African Americans and Latino drug dealers are more likely to be arrested because they operate in an open-air public market than the whites do. The whites who engage in drug deals tend to carry their operations in private where the police are less likely to notice. As a result, preformed opinion has been made to criminalize the minority as people who are overrepresented in the illicit drug deals ( Snyder, 2015 ). Many blacks and Latino are taken away from the community and locked up in jails thus denying them the opportunity to participate in the development of their society. As a result, the poverty levels tend to increase due to this social injustice emanating from the racially biased criminal justice system. Contrary to what many believe, minorities are law abiding citizens just like the whites, but due to the biases in the criminal justice system and target on the war against drugs, the whole population gets criminalized even when they are innocent. Law enforcement and justice system that practices racial bias and seems to target a certain community amount to unfairness and social injustice ( Snyder, 2015 ). A criminal justice system should be fair and applied uniformly to all individuals irrespective of race or ethnic group. Crime control is very crucial and every community like a crime-free environment where they can develop. Even though most minority groups and low-income individuals are law-abiding citizens, the historical experience has labeled them as criminals, and they continue to suffer in the hands of police who target them in all aspects. The law enforcement system does not protect them, but instead criminalize them, always trying to find wrongs in them.
Effective and fair policing and criminal justice system that removes the notion that a particular group is criminals is what a nation requires to achieve its law enforcement goals. Despite the mass incarceration for the blacks and Latino due to drug crimes, the issue of an illicit drug remains a big issue in the United States. The unfair law enforcement system which has constantly targeted even the innocent minority groups has always left the real drug dealers in the society. As a result, mass incarceration has not been effective in helping control illicit drugs. Instead, it has led to social injustice on the minority groups who always fall victims of imprisonment, spending much of their time in jail.
Federal, State, and Local Drug Laws
Even though there are federal laws in place to combat the abuse, use, and distribution of illicit and controlled substance, each state also has its own set of drug laws. A major difference between the federal and the state and local drug laws is that while the majority of the federal drug convictions are mainly for trafficking, most local and state convictions are made on possession ( Enns, 2014 ). The severity of the consequences is also another difference between the state and federal drug laws. The federal drug laws tend to carry harsher charges and longer sentences. State drug laws, on the other hand, carry lesser consequences such as shorter jail terms or fine for the possession without intent to distribute the drug. In both the federal and state drug laws, most of the convictions and cases stem from possession, manufacturing, and trafficking of controlled substances. Under the state and federal laws, a controlled substance is the use and distribution of a substance that is governed by the law. Distribution and trafficking, on the other hand, are defined as selling, delivering or providing controlled substances illegally. The sentencing for distribution and trafficking usually ranges between three years to life imprisonment. However, the consequences of conviction mainly depend on the type and amount of controlled substance and defendants’ criminal history.
Effective Methodologies for dealing with High Drug use
Training, counseling and community education is an effective method that can be applied instead of mass incarceration to reduce the use of drugs in the community. Educating members of the community the negative effects of substance abuse and how to keep their children off the trap of drugs can help create a mutual understanding and provide a long lasting solution ( Katz et al., 2013 ). This method is a better alternative to mass incarceration for minor drug offenders who repeat the crime even after the jail term. Promoting community development and providing equal opportunities for all people irrespective of race can also help solve the problem of drug use among low-income communities. By promoting development and allowing people equal opportunity, they will be able to engage in income generating activities, improve their income and come out of the poverty levels. High levels of drug use among low-income communities are due to depression and psychological factors that come with poverty. Instead of mass incarceration of the drug offenders in the community, an effective alternative solution can be to carry out mass media campaigns to demonstrate the negative effects of drug use and remove the usual norms that people who use drug believe ( Katz et al., 2013 ). It also requires both the state and the federal government to make access to drugs inaccessible to the citizens. Controlling and preventing drugs into the country will make it difficult for the citizens to access such drugs thus curtailing its use.
Conclusion
The drug law remains to be very hard and discriminative on the minority groups in the United States. Many of them are incarcerated over drug-related crimes much more than the whites who are equally involved in the drug crimes. Irrespective of the mass incarceration of the minority, the method has proved to be ineffective in fighting the war against drugs. Drug trafficking and selling have continued to exist even as many minorities are criminalized for drug offenses. Providing community education, promoting community development and making accessibility to drugs difficult can better help deal with the problem of drugs.
References
Lassiter, M. D. (2015). Impossible Criminals: The Suburban Imperatives of America's War on Drugs. Journal of American History , 102 (1), 126-140.
Thomas, J. M. (2013). Mass incarceration of minority males: A critical look at its historical roots and how educational policies encourage its existence. Race, Gender & Class , 177-190.
Snyder, D. (2015). One Size Does Not Fit All: A Look at the Disproportionate Effects of Federal Mandatory Minimum Drug Sentences on Racial Minorities and How They Have Contributed to the Degradation of the Underprivileged Africa-American Family. Hamline J. Pub. L. &Pol'y , 36 , 77.
Enns, P. K. (2014). The public's increasing punitiveness and its influence on mass incarceration in the United States. American Journal of Political Science , 58 (4), 857-872.
Katz, C., Bolton, S. L., Katz, L. Y., Isaak, C., Tilston ‐ Jones, T., Sareen, J., & Swampy Cree Suicide Prevention Team. (2013). A systematic review of school ‐ based suicide prevention programs. Depression and anxiety , 30 (10), 1030-1045.
