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Development of Mass Incarceration: The War on Drugs
The war on drugs era is an extremely significant part of American history. The impact that society faced during the war on drugs era brought about questionable intentions regarding certain communities and how their futures would unfold. There are many costs and consequences that will be examined: the massive increase in incarceration, how drug abuse is viewed as criminal rather than a public health concern, and what communities were affected by the “War on Drugs”. It is important to highlight the disparities within our criminal justice system that withholds society from viewing drug abuse as a public health concern rather than an act of criminality.
The war on drugs was proposed by President Richard Nixon, who is known as the co-conspirator to the development of mass incarceration. During President Nixon's presidency, he encouraged Americans to support policies that would be tougher on crime. “As part of the War on Drugs initiative, Nixon increased federal funding for drug-control agencies and proposed strict measures, such as mandatory prison sentencing, for drug crimes” (History.com, 2017). No knock warrants and mandatory sentences were two policies implemented during the Nixon administration. Policies such as these contributed to the infrastructure that caused the prison corporation to grow. According to www.nap.edu, “In the 1980s and 1990s, state and federal legislators, governors and presidents signed laws intended to ensure that more of those convicted would be imprisoned and that prison terms for many offenses would be longer than in earlier periods”, (National Research Council, 2014). In most cases, politicians and legislators allocated for state and federal funding to further their push in controlling the drug operations concerning offenders as well as enforcing harsher sentences.
Nixon went on to create the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in 1973; this agency is a special police force committed to targeting illegal drug use and smuggling in the United States (History.com, 2017). Crack cocaine and marijuana were the motivation for the operations. African Americans and Latino/Hispanic Americans became the vast majority to make up the prison population. The prison population expanded once police and special operation groups were given the authorization to violate these groups' rights through racially motivated policies. According to www.history.com, “The DEA was given 1,470 special agents and a budget of less than $75 million, which has nearly 5,000 agents and a budget of $2.03 billion today” (History.com, 2017).
While thousands of Americans faced drug abuse problems, leaders of our democracy disregarded the addictions and the health concern but used this infrastructure to incarcerate ‘Black and Brown Americans’. There was one single initiative taken to discontinue the use of drug abuse during the 1980s: the Nancy Reagan campaign, “Just say no to drugs”; the campaign was aimed to educate Americans and discourage the use of drugs usage/distribution among the youth; the disparities continued throughout the 1970-the 1990s consequently. “A notable feature of mandatory minimums was the massive gap between the amounts of crack and of powder cocaine that resulted in the same minimum sentences: possession of five grams of crack led to an automatic five-year sentence while it took the possession of 500 grams of powder cocaine to trigger that sentence” (Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopedia, 2020); consequently, “80% of crack users were African Americans; mandatory minimums led to an unequal increase of incarceration rates for nonviolent Black drug offenders” (Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopedia, 2020).
In conclusion, Americans suffered, and families were broken causing a disruption in certain communities. As a result, much of the funding used to support massive raids could have been used to help combat the drug addictions that were developing during the war on drugs era. Programs aimed to support sobriety and restorative treatment would have lessened the chances of long-time drug abuse and controlled what we know as mass incarceration.
