Free the Dream

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The War on Drugs is the War on Color

The War on Drugs is the War on Color By Jeffrey Guzman 13 percent of the US population is made up of Black Americans. Of the US prison population, however, Blacks account for 62 out of every 100 inmates. Let that sink in. Clearly there is a problem within the American justice system. Why does such a small minority account for such a large portion of those convicted? Quite frankly, the justice system as it operates today was not crafted to treat minorities equally. Systematic oppression and racism disadvantage individuals of color from the point they are stopped by the police to the point of sentencing. The War on Drugs only serves to perpetuate this reality. Let’s begin with stop-and-frisk or terry stop procedures. Terry stops were upheld in Terry v. Ohio (1968). The majority ruled that stops which are based off reasonable suspicion that the person has or will commit a crime are constitutional. It appears that many police jurisdictions have supplanted race for reasonable suspicion. In New York City, Blacks accounted for 53 to 56 percent of those stopped since 2002, whereas White accounted for 9 to 12 percent of pedestrians stopped. The other 29 to percent is made up of Latinos. Numbers like these are prevalent throughout America’s major cities. Clearly race and stops are deeply intertwined. The disproportionate number of stops between Whites and people of color does not in anyway relate to a higher prevalence of crime within the community of color, as some might suggest. In fact, stop-and-frisk procedures reveal that White persons stopped tended to be twice as likely as persons of color to possess firearms and three times more likely to be in possession of drugs. African Americans comprise 14 percent of drug users, but 37 percent of those arrested for drug related offences. The prejudice propagates into other realms of justice as well: such as sentencing. The sentences African Americans receive for cocaine related offences are 18 times more severe than the sentences received by White counterparts for the same offense. Black men are also 13 times more likely to be convicted and they make up 74 percent of all drug offenders in prison. However, if every American who has committed a drug offence were accused for the crime, then over half the population would be imprisoned. Just as slavery carries a badge, imprisonment carries a badge that poses obstacles for former convicts. Besides Maine and Vermont, every U.S. state has a law that restricts the vote of former convicts. In some states convicts must complete their sentence, in other they must complete parole, while there are a handful of states like Florida, that forever strip away the right to vote upon imprisonment. Because black men are incarcerated at a disproportionate rate, there are certain minority-majority communities that find themselves severely disenfranchised. In Florida, over 20 percent of the African American male population has lost the right to vote. In all, 13 percent of the African American male population is disenfranchised. In states where convicts regain the right to vote upon release, voting is still severely skewed because many of these citizens are not made aware that their right has been restored. In other states, the former convict must request to regain their right and this often results in a long, draining process. Documents are backlogged. Paperwork is not reader friendly. In the end, many are refused the right to act on the laws that affect their lives. Another post-prison issue is that of recidivism. Two months after their release from prison, 31 percent of former convicts are employed. This number is still below 50 percent well into eight months after release. This number accounts for all races, but it can be assumed that the employment rates are even lower for people of color, who already experience more trouble than White counterparts without a former conviction. Overall, it is expected that seven out of ten convicts of colors released will be back in prison within three years. The War on Drugs is a war on color. Most U.S. policies rooted in policing drugs do little other than to burden the lives of people of color. Proponents of the War on Drugs uses the rhetoric of public safety to maintain their campaign viable. However, this war is nothing more than thinly veiled racism. This war is a persecution. It systematically strips people of color of their most inherent rights to life and liberty. The War on Drugs must be stopped. Project Free the Dream fires the first shot.

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Day 57

There is still a long way to go in eliminating the injustices of the war on drugs. Project Free the Dream is advocating, lobbying and design policies for the institution of more drug courts throughout the nation to address these issues. We hope you join our fight. Please visit www.projectfreethedream.org for more information.

Bang-Bang For Your Buck? Systematic Economic Failures of the War on Drugs

By Martin Maldonado

By now it is a widely known fact that the War on Drugs has been a failure. After 3 decades, the federal government continues to pursue policies that were enacted as politicians effectively convinced the public of the need to get “tough on crime.” The many laws that are part of this umbrella government anti-crime campaign not only have proven ineffective in their goals—presuming these goals were to curb crime and drug use. They have had the unintended consequence of being an economic disaster.

This disaster presents itself in two ways. The first is in a fiscal sense, where both federal and state governments have seen hundreds of billions of dollars wasted on useless supply-side reduction tactics as well as the unnecessary incarceration of nonviolent criminals. In another sense, this economic catastrophe extends itself into the aftermath of those brought into the criminal justice system for petty crimes, deteriorating the economic strength of many poor communities—especially those of color.

The fiscal costs of the war on drugs have been enormously burdensome on the federal as well as state governments. The Drug Policy Institute (DPI) reports that “Over the past four decades, federal and state governments have poured over $1 trillion into drug war spending.” During this time, most of the money allocated to the war has gone primarily to supply-side reduction efforts as well as incarceration of drug dealers, users and possessors.

Similarly, states have been actively aiming to suppress drugs through wasteful approaches. The Cato Institute released a report that put state and local expenditures on the war on drugs at prohibitive $25 billion, with an average of 41% of judicial and legal budgets devoted to drug prohibition. As a solution to crime reduction, this seems ludicrous, as  Cato finds that as a fraction of total drug related arrests, “possession arrests, stand between 33 percent and 85 percent.”  

The White House reports in their february break down of the National Drug Control Budget, that “56% being used for criminal law enforcement and interdiction on both domestic and international operations.” Forbes released an article in Oct. 2013, noting that supply-side reduction efforts “enable traffickers to earn a premium for undertaking the special risks involved in supplying an illegal product.” As the price of the product goes up, suppliers “are highly motivated to find ways around whatever roadblocks the government throws up between them and their customers.”

Yet intricacies in the system, such as asset forfeiture and funding schemes continue to receive support from law enforcement and police unions aiming to deal with the threat that the drug trade poses to public safety. The system also incentivizes racial and socioeconomic inequities as the DPI suggests “the easiest way for local police to up their numbers and boost their careers is to target low-level drug offenders, not violent kingpins.” Overwhelmingly, these targets are African Americans and Latino.

According to the DPI’s report, The war has put “half a million people behind bars for drug violations.” An overwhelming--and disproportionate--majority of these people are persons of color, inflicting severe consequences on their communities. Michelle Alexander, in her treatise The New Jim Crow, finds that “in major cities wracked by the drug war, as many as 80 percent of young African American men have criminal records, thus are subject to legalized discrimination,” with employment discrimination playing a major role. She continues, that following the release of black and latino inmates, the “laws, rules and regulations discriminate against ex-offenders, effectively preventing their meaningful reintegration into the mainstream economy.”

Alexander notes that “the National Employment Law Project (NELP) suggests that many employers refuse to consider people with criminal records despite the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) recommendations against it.” However, the EEOC, the federal commission in charge of supervising employment practices and punishing discrimination, accepts bans under vague language that is easily manipulated to further discrimination practices. Alexander adds that the NELP finds that employers in hundreds of geographic areas “blatantly violate EEOC guidelines.”

These hardships are exacerbated by the likeliness that ex-offenders will generally possess little formal education, with over 70 percent of the being high school dropouts. Additionally, finding themselves in meager economic situations following release, transportation and housing become increasingly difficult for the ex-cons to access. Joblessness in African American communities becomes a main driver for repeated offenses and violent crimes.

There is hope, however, as in the last budget report for National Drug Control, released by the White House in February, up to 44% of the $26 billion have been allocated to treatment and prevention--a 3% increase from fiscal year 2014. Having so many resources devoted to supply reduction and incarceration has squeezed out potential investment in treatment. The DPI states that “the drug war has created enormous public health costs by as limiting the availability of harm reduction programs that could quell overdose and infectious disease transmission rates,” such as drug courts. These alternative processing and sentencing courts have proven incredibly effective in reducing recidivism, providing rehabilitation and education to drug abusers, and  are renowned for their affordability ($1 on every $3 spent per inmate). It is a promising alternative to the fiscal and socio-economic disaster resulting from the current system.

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Creating healthy habits and positive attitude one step at a time

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