War on Drugs Presentation

To what extent do you agree with the viewpoint that the war on drugs is the modern manifestation of the Jim Crow laws?

The beginning of the war on drugs in the 1980’s changed the nature of drug crime and punishment in the US. The war on drugs lasted from Nixon’s administration right through to Donald Trump today, playing a pivotal role in political decision making over the years.

The main aim of the war on drugs laid out by Nixon was to tackle America’s growing problem with illegal drugs, from the crack dens of the African American communities to the high-profile traffickers on a global scale.[i]

Soon after the birth of the ‘war on drugs’ came the ‘war on terror’, another war set out by Presidential administrations as needing tackled. Similar to the ‘war on terror’ was the previous, lower profile war on blacks that followed the initial war on drugs. African American communities were seen to be the root problem of America’s drug problem, the crack dens of the poverty ridden pockets of America’s cities, populated by African Americans soon became the focus of the war.[ii]

Thus, was the war on drugs really a war on blacks, and if so what were its links to the historical Jim Crow South?

Nixon and the war on drugs

Richard Nixon, the former president of the United States, openly identified drugs as “public enemy number one” in America.[iii] Having already passed the Controlled Substances Act in 1970, Nixon furthermore stated that “in order to fight and defeat this enemy, it is necessary to wage a new, all-out offensive”[iv] and in the following year a total War on Drugs began. Despite increasing federal funding for agencies specialising in drug-control measures and the creation of new agencies such as the SAODAP and the DEA, Nixon focussed his efforts largely towards punishment as he introduced a mandatory minimum sentence for those who commit drug related crimes. This policy was then continued by Reagan into his own War on Drugs in 1982.

During the Nixon administration, the prison population increased by over 100,000 and significantly African Americans were the dominant race inside prisons.[v] The War on Drugs had a devastating effect on black communities across America. They were disproportionately investigated, detained, searched, arrested and charged for drug crimes and often it was young black men that were law enforcements main subject.[vi]

Since 1920 Americas male prison population has more than doubled, notably these increases took place from 1970 onwards. Moreover, a large and increasing number of these inmates are black. This number increased from the mid 1970’s when Nixon declared a War on Drugs and peaked in 2000.[vii]

This especially shows a link back to the Jim Crow era as it is clear that black people continued to be marginalised and stigmatised, often subject to raids, searches and arrests for using or possessing drugs when in reality they were the subject of a cruel and inherently racist set of policies.

Obama and the war on drugs

President Obama was one president in particular that changed, adapted and implemented the war on drugs differently to any other president. Earning the reputation of being soft on drugs, Obama implemented the Fair Sentencing Act 2010 reducing the sentencing rate for crack cocaine and powder cocaine from 100:1 to 18:1.[viii]

Further to this, Obama also placed focus upon the racial disparities between white Americans and African Americans in the federal and state systems, addressing the alarming rates at which African Americans were being incarcerated.[ix]

Figure 1 Kelly Morris “The USA Shifts Away From The “War On Drugs””, The Lancet, 373 (2009), 1237-1238 https://doi.org/10.1016/s0140-6736(09)60710-84

Along with this, Obama made his links between the drug war in America and the war on terror across the middle east. It became clear that such wars had internal links between each other, with Afghanistan (a US military hotspot throughout the 21^st century) providing a whopping 93% of the world opium.[x]

The strong links between Obama’s soft approach to the war on drugs and his hardline approach to the war on terror can be seen throughout his administration. He believed that by tackling the large scale opium production in Afghanistan he could help the drug problem sweeping across America. Thus, by tackling one using the hardline approach, the other could be solved through a soft approach.

Contradicting his soft approach to the war in drugs was this hardline war on terror. Unlike Presidents before him, Obama used a public health approach to the war on drugs, challenging the problems that come with drugs and tackling the long standing racial stereotypes of the Jim Crow South. For the first time, African Americans were being assisted in the unfair sentencing rates for drug crimes and were no longer viewed as the root of America’s drug problem.

There is a prolific link between the war on drugs and the Jim Crow South through attitudes towards African Americans in many walks of life. Challenging these long standing racial stereotypes is what set Obama apart from previous administrations, changing the nature of the war on drugs through a hardline approach to the war on terror.

Thus, the clear links between overrepresentation of African American communities in both the federal and state systems shows strong reflections to the Jim Crow South, with more and more African American individuals entering the system every day. Reducing the sentencing rate via the introduction of the Fair Sentencing Act 2010 significantly aided this, along with the changing attitudes towards African American individuals in drug related crime.

Trump and the war on drugs

 Key to the most recent iteration of the war on drugs is a harsh approach focused on judicial reform and a hard on crime approach.

• Prison population is up to 2.3 million from 2.2 under Obama
• 20% of the prison population are incarcerated for drug related offenses [xi]

“I am the law and order candidate[xii]”

Repealing the Fair sentencing Act 2010

A return to high sentences for non-violence drug offenses and possessions of drugs such as fentanyl

Given that the African American community is disproportionately arrested for drugs related crimes this will heighten racial disparity in the system

Taken from: Prison policy, the whole pie 2019[xiii]

More specific statistics on racial bias include:

Fentanyl was found to be associated with low

level drug deals and non-violent misdemeanour crime

77% of fentanyl arrests in 2018 were African American[xiv]

What this means is that putting this drug in the category that triggers higher sentencing will not reduce the amount of drugs on the streets but it will incarcerate African American at higher rates for much longer sentences. The issue with the war on drugs is that these laws are not directly discriminatory in the way that Jim Crow often was there’s no law that specifically mentions African Americans.

However, looking at figures across races there is a clear racial bias in its implementations

Arrests for African Americans  

Felony crimes (possessions, distributions)

27% of drug arrests

misdemeanour (using)

53% of arrests

Arrests for White Community 

Felony crimes (Possessions, distributions)

4% of white arrests

Misdemeanour (using)

80% of arrests

Taken from Rosenberg et al, 2017[i]

Felony crimes are those that trigger higher sentences as well as other collateral consequences. Therefore we can see in the implementation of the drug war there are clear links to Jim Crow and the targeting of the black community.

Felony disenfranchisement is the big one: In certain states up to 26% of the black electorate 
cannot vote because of their criminal record.[xvi]                                                           
Taken from New Jim Crow[xvii]

Collateral consequences of the drug war include:

Felony disenfranchisement

Loss of job opportunity due to criminal record

Harder to get custody of children

High chance of reoffending due to harsh parole term

This parallels the disenfranchisement  tactics of the past such as the literacy tests, which excluded black voters.

Due to the disproportionate incarceration of the black community the war on drugs can be seen as Jim Crow in a new era.

Jim Crow and immigrants

The modern war on drugs has widened to include Latinos in the trump era:

• harsh policies such as the infamous wall and family separation have been justified by the war on drugs
• Latinos have seen an increase in hate crime since he came to office
  • Increased by 24%[xviii]

“When Mexico sends its people...

They’re sending people that have lots of problems, 

and they’re bringing those problems with us. 

They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime”

[xix] Donald Trump- 2015

taken from the drugs policy

[xx]taken from the drugs policy

[i] Bobo, Lawrence D., and Devon Johnson, “A TASTE FOR PUNISHMENT: Black And White Americans’ Views On The Death Penalty And The War On Drugs”, Du Bois Review: Social Science Research On Race, 1 (2004), 151-180 <https://doi.org/10.1017/s1742058x04040081>

[ii] Kenneth B. Nunn, Race, Crime and the Pool of Surplus Criminality: Or Why the “War on Drugs” Was a “War on Blacks,” 6 J. Gender Race & Just. 381 (2002), available at http://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/facultypub/107

[iii] Elaine B Sharp The dilemma of drug policy in the United States. (New York: Harpercollins College Division, 1994) p.1

[iv] Elaine B Sharp The dilemma of drug policy in the United States. (New York: Harpercollins College Division, 1994) p.1

[v] Sierra Coffee, The War on Drugs, Cocaine and Their Effect on the Federal Prison Population (Honours Thesis, Middle Tennessee State University, 2018) p.4

[vi] Kenneth B. Nunn ‘Race, crime and the pool of surplus criminality: or why the war on drugs was a war on blacks’ J. Gender Race & Just. 6 (2002) 381-447 (p.381)

[vii] Morgan Waterman, Race, Segregation, and Incarceration in the States, 1920-2010 (2016) < https://journeys.dartmouth.edu/censushistory/2016/10/31/rough-draft-race-segregation-and-incarceration-in-the-states-1920-2010/> [Accessed 8 March 2020]

[viii] Sirin, Cigdem, V., “From Nixon’s war on drugs to Obama’s drug policies today: Presidential progress in addressing racial injustices and disparities”, Race, Gender and Class: University of Texas, Vol. 18, issue 3-4, P82-99

[ix] Kelly Morris “The USA Shifts Away From The “War On Drugs””, The Lancet, 373 (2009), 1237-1238 https://doi.org/10.1016/s0140-6736(09)60710-8

[x] Peter Dale Scott (2011) Obama and Afghanistan: America’s Drug-Corrupted War, Critical Asian Studies, 43:1, 111-138, DOI: 10.1080/14672715.2011.537854

[xi] Wendy Sawyer and Peter Wagner , Mass

[xii] Donald Trump, Trump’s speech on policing (Virginia: Virginia Beach, 2016) in Fact base available at: https://factba.se/transcripts

[xiii] Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2019  (2019) <https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2019.html> [accessed 17 March 2020].

[xiv] Nancy Gertner, William Barr’s new war on drugs (2020) <https://www.sentencingproject.org/news/william-barrs-new-war-drugs/> [accessed 18 March 2020].

[xv]  Alana Rosenberg, Allison Groves and Kim Blankenship, “Comparing Black And White Drug Offenders: Implications For Racial Disparities In Criminal Justice And Re-entry Policy And Programming”, Journal Of Drug Issues, 47.1 (2017), 132–142 (p 135)

[xvi] Christopher Uggen, Ryan Larson, and Sarah Shannon, 6 Million Lost Voters: State-Level Estimates Of Felony Disenfranchisement, 2016 (Washington: The Sentencing Project, 2017), p.

[xvii] Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow (New York: The New Press, 2010) p 140

[xviii] David Fitzgerald, Gustavo Lopez and Angela McClean, Mexican Immigrants Face Threats To Civil Rights And Increased Social Hostility (San Diego: Centre for Comparative Immigration Study, 2019) p62

[xix] Michelle Ye Hee Lee, Donald Trump’s False Comments Connecting Mexican Immigrants and Crime, WASH. POST (July 8, 2015), https://www.washingtonpost.com/new s/fact-checker/wp/2015/07/08/donald-trumps-false-comments-connecting-mexican-immigra nts-and-crime/?noredirect&utm_term=.67b3c9c1e700.

[xx] Drug Policy Alliance, The Drug War, Mass Incarceration And Race, The War On Drugs (New York: Drug Policy Alliance, 2018

Bibliography

Alana Rosenberg, Allison Groves and Kim Blankenship, “Comparing Black And White Drug Offenders: Implications For Racial Disparities In Criminal Justice And Re-entry Policy And Programming”, Journal Of Drug Issues, 47.1 (2017), 132–142 (p 135)

Bobo, Lawrence D., and Devon Johnson, “A TASTE FOR PUNISHMENT: Black And White Americans’ Views On The Death Penalty And The War On Drugs”, Du Bois Review: Social Science Research On Race, 1 (2004), 151-180 https://doi.org/10.1017/s1742058x04040081

Christopher Uggen, Ryan Larson, and Sarah Shannon, 6 Million Lost Voters: State-Level Estimates Of Felony Disenfranchisement, 2016 (Washington: The Sentencing Project, 2017), p.

David Fitzgerald, Gustavo Lopez and Angela McClean, Mexican Immigrants Face Threats To Civil Rights And Increased Social Hostility (San Diego: Centre for Comparative Immigration Study, 2019) p62

Donald Trump, Trump’s speech on policing (Virginia: Virginia Beach, 2016) in Fact base available at: https://factba.se/transcripts

Drug Policy Alliance, The Drug War, Mass Incarceration And Race, The War On Drugs (New York: Drug Policy Alliance, 2018

Elaine B Sharp The dilemma of drug policy in the United States. (New York: Harpercollins College Division, 1994) p.1

Elaine B Sharp The dilemma of drug policy in the United States. (New York: Harpercollins College Division, 1994) p.1

Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2019  (2019) <https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2019.html> [accessed 17 March 2020].

Kelly Morris “The USA Shifts Away From The “War On Drugs””, The Lancet, 373 (2009), 1237-1238 https://doi.org/10.1016/s0140-6736(09)60710-8

Kenneth B. Nunn, Race, Crime and the Pool of Surplus Criminality: Or Why the “War on Drugs” Was a “War on Blacks,” 6 J. Gender Race & Just. 381 (2002), available at http://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/facultypub/107

Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow (New York: The New Press, 2010) p 140

Michelle Ye Hee Lee, Donald Trump’s False Comments Connecting Mexican Immigrants and Crime, WASH. POST (July 8, 2015), https://www.washingtonpost.com/new s/fact-checker/wp/2015/07/08/donald-trumps-false-comments-connecting-mexican-immigra nts-and-crime/?noredirect&utm_term=.67b3c9c1e700.

Morgan Waterman, Race, Segregation, and Incarceration in the States, 1920-2010 (2016) < https://journeys.dartmouth.edu/censushistory/2016/10/31/rough-draft-race-segregation-and-incarceration-in-the-states-1920-2010/> [Accessed 8 March 2020]

Nancy Gertner, William Barr’s new war on drugs (2020) <https://www.sentencingproject.org/news/william-barrs-new-war-drugs/> [accessed 18 March 2020].

Peter Dale Scott (2011) Obama and Afghanistan: America’s Drug-Corrupted War, Critical Asian Studies, 43:1, 111-138, DOI: 10.1080/14672715.2011.537854

Sierra Coffee, The War on Drugs, Cocaine and Their Effect on the Federal Prison Population (Honours Thesis, Middle Tennessee State University, 2018) p.4

Sirin, Cigdem, V., “From Nixon’s war on drugs to Obama’s drug policies today: Presidential progress in addressing racial injustices and disparities”, Race, Gender and Class: University of Texas, Vol. 18, issue 3-4, P82-99

Wendy Sawyer and Peter Wagner , Mass