I the war on drugs really just a war on minorities? Are the police cracking down on drugs just to arrest more minority men? Do the police believe in cleaning the streets of drugs or cleaning the streets on minority men? My answer is yes. Since the creation, evolution, and professionalization and American policing minority men have been the target of arrest. Statistics have shown that minority population is a highest in prison. Police have always charged minority men and women with more severe charges, even some punishable by death. To be straight forward with it, police have targeted and made a career off arresting minorities.
A new phenomenon began to raise during the 80s and 90s and that was the rise of drugs. Drugs became so popular and harmful to the people that police had to correct this problem. The police began to crack down on drugs, thus beginning the war on drugs. Now the funny thing about this is that minority and drugs go hand in hand. "African-Americans are 62 percent of drug offenders sent to state
prisons, yet they represent only 12 percent of the U. S. population." This makes me wonder about the people who sail and use drugs. A person cant tell me that a white person doesn't use drugs because they would be a plan lie. In fact, "black men are sent to state prisons on drug charges at 13 times the rate of White men." This fact alone makes me believe that African American men are the target for drugs arrests. Even when it comes to the media. African American athletes are the ones who lose careers for drug involvement. Now I'm not justifying the actions of these men, I just want to know where are the white athletes who use drugs because I know there are some.
I am about to state two facts that disturb me very much, the first being "more than 25.4 million Americans have been arrested on drug charges since 1980; about one-third of them were Black." The other is 'Drug transactions among Blacks are easier for police to target
because they more often happen in public than do drug transactions
between Whites." These statements intrigue me but i sense a bias. The second statement says that blacks get targeted more because they happen more often. I say this is not true, the police target poor minority neighborhoods so of course more drug experiences occur. These officers don't target white neighborhoods where white kids are distributing drugs. The last point I would like to get at which backs up my answer is the fact that 1/3 of drug arrest since 1980 have been African Americans. This is because minorities are target because of a stereotype. Since African Americans have been associated with drug involvement, police are more likely to target and make arrest on these men. All I ask is that the target of drugs be un-bias.
I found this blog very interesting. I believe you show some pretty good evidence of cops arresting minorities and seeming to turn a blind eye to white people. I thought the fact that black people do more drug sales in public quite interesting. I wonder what the reason for that is and why white people seem to do it more in private. I am very against the drug war and hope that some time this war that is not winnable ends. We just have too many people in our prisons to keep this drug war going.
ReplyDeleteI think the War on Drugs does drastically increase the prison population.
DeleteI found your article to be very interesting. I can agree that the war on drugs may target minorities in poverty. Many people in poverty turn to selling drugs as a legitimate way to make a living. I would have to assume that maybe the numbers of arrests for drugs have to correlate with the usage and sales of drugs. If there are more minorities getting arrested for drugs, you would have to assume that there are more minorities buying and selling drugs. In the article it stated that "minorities and drugs go hand in hand" which would lead me to believe that there would be more minorities as opposed to other groups buying and selling more drugs. Therefore it makes sense that a larger number of minorities would be arrested for these offenses. The War on Drugs has established some stiff sentences for drug offenders but that is the result of policies made by elected politicians not police officers. I can agree that some sentences for drug offenses are extreme, the article mentioned that some charges are punishable by death, that seems extremely harsh. White athletes are involved in drug usage which are also highlighted by the media. Matt Jones,a white athlete, was suspended by the NFL numerous times for troubles with his cocaine addiction. I think that this article attempts to bring light of a huge inequality that is present in our criminal justice system. Minorities do represent a rather large number of people in the system for drug related offenses. I think the problem lies in drug laws rather than street level justice of officers making arrests.
ReplyDeleteThis was very interesting and well written article that I feel that I can relate back to my own life. First off, I would like to say that the two statistics that you mentioned really opened my eyes to exactly how big of a problem cops disproportionately arresting minorities really is. I always realized that it was a issue but your article demonstrated that it is much worse than I thought. As for my own life, I have encountered various scenarios is which I felt the police treated one individual differently simply because they were a minority. For example, two of my friends got stopped by the police in the same town for the same drug offense. Both of them had clean records but my friend who is white ended up walking away with a simple ticket whereas my other buddy, who is Mexican, was taken down to the station and arrested. Even though I can never beexactly sure why they were treated differently, I do believe that the fact that one was a minority did play a role in the process. I hope that police can develop strategies to prevent this type of discrimination but I do not see any major changes taking place in the near future.
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