However, the impacts of gradual withdrawal of drug users through imprisonment created even more serious challenges. By separating people from their families and the community at large and later bringing them was disastrous since they ended up without receiving any assistance or rehabilitation (Cover, 2015). Further, after serving their sentences, they not only ended up without any support but were often considered as potential offenders who are likely to engage back into crime. Additionally, after being separated from their families, they end up not being able to provide for them or even maintain their ties. This was further worsened by the situation where convicted offenders find it difficult to procure employment. Hence, like any other war, the war on drugs was perceived to be less destructive, but the truth behind is that it was responsible for collateral damage in the society.
Key Factors Surrounding the Problem
In the war on drugs interventions, suburban areas were left out in drug use search and reporting. However, in urban areas, African Americans became the target drug users and dealers. Despite the prevalence of drug usage in urban areas, the problem exists in any other community. The region disparity in the drug searches and reporting was also contributed by challenges in conducting profiling in suburban regions hence the urban areas became the hotspots where the minority were arrested for nonviolent drug offenses.
Although the recent rates of illegal drug usage range from 7.4% for Black and 7.2%, the number of White drug users is far much higher than the Blacks. This is mainly because the whites make up the majority of the population. Other studies have indicated that the whites made up 72% of the illegal drug users compared to Blacks who make only 15% (Goodman, 2018). Further, Whites are five times more likely to abuse marijuana compared to the Blacks.
In contrast, the people of the color make up more than 60% of incarcerated populations. For instance, in 1996 when the war on drugs was still intensified, the Blacks made up 62.6% of the drug offenders in the state prisons. On the national statistics, the number of Black men incarcerated because of drug offenses was 13 times more compared the whites (Cover, 2015). The situation was even far much worse in other states where the rates were 26 to 57 times more compared to their white counterparts. This indicated that there was the difference on who was using the drug vs. the one who was doing time in the incarceration. The blacks were less likely to engage in drugs. However, they were more likely to be arrested and charged for drugs abuse.
Although the correction system is meant to remove the criminal from the society, it has left behind a broken social system by weakening families emotionally and even economically. Further, considering that most of the prisons are located far from the homes, families of the convicted offenders may find it difficult to conduct frequent visits due to the transportation of challenges and even finding time for the visits. As a result, family members including parents and children end up losing contact (Bennett, 2018b). Further, massive incarceration deprives the important community workforce.
Black and Latino communities have also continued to suffer from a lack of assistance from the states and even on the federal government to fund education, health and employment initiatives. While such programs receive limited or no funds at all, more funding is being allocated on the war on drugs. The unequal funding on support and funding for the war on drugs has been the cause of massive incarceration rates among the minority communities (Cover, 2015). Currently, more than 2 million individuals are serving sentences with the majority of them have committed nonviolent offenses.
Literature Review
The existing literature has focused on relating the impact of war on drugs on massive incarceration. According to various studies, although the US makes up less than 5% of the total global population, it is the leading country in the numbers of prisoners with 25% of its population being incarcerated mainly due to war on drugs. This has been largely contributed by inappropriate drug laws and harsh sentencing terms which has ended up affecting the Black population unequally (Bennett, 2018b). Findings from various studies have cited that although drug abuse and sales are equal among all the races, the Black and Latino which are the minority end up serving harsh sentence terms. Other literatures have suggested that racist lawmakers aimed at controlling Black Americans. They, therefore, devised war on drugs as a means of locking up people of the color based on low-level offenses and as result incarceration rates increased from 300,000 to 2 million within three decades.
Further studies have also cited the impact of mass incarceration which has intensified due to war drugs on families. According to findings from research done on the American population, more than 2.7 million children in American society are from families where one or more parents are serving a sentence. More than 67% of the incarcerated parents were convicted of nonviolent offenses (Bennett, 2018b). Additionally, 11.1% of the Black children have a parent who is served a sentence term compared 3% for Latino children and 1.75% for the whites.
Some literature has also cited collateral damage associated with mass incarceration resulting from the war on drugs. For instance, consequences of violating drug law are paid for not only through serving a term in the correction systems but also being denied child custody, rights to vote, employment, accessing financial loans, obtaining licensing, student support, housing, and other essential services. This forces them to become poorer especially among blacks. Studies have also shown that at least one out of 13 black American is denied to vote after being convicted of offenses (Bennett, 2018a). This has been highly contributed by the war on drugs.
Based on the consequences associated with mass incarceration, various studies have suggested some recommendations to cater for the collateral damage already caused and prevent future occurrences of the same. One of the recommendation is that drug possession should be decriminalized and the circumstances which lead to arrest and incarceration of people especially the Blacks for nonviolent offenses should be removed (Cover, 2015). Instead, individuals should be assisted to access drug treatment and law enforcement resources used should alternatively be used to combat serious and violent crimes. Another recommendation is that policies which contribute to unfair arrest and massive incarcerations should be an amendment. Further, law enforcement practices should be changed, sentencing disparities should be repealed, and harsh mandatory minimum sentences should be revised. Another recommendation suggested by the existing literature is that policies which deter individuals who had earlier been convicted from accessing essential rights and needs should be rolled back (Cummings, 2018). Hence, they should be allowed to vote, get employed, and access financial assistance and other necessities.
On the contrary, other literatures have argued that drug offenders are the smallest proportion of the US incarceration system hence suggesting that mass incarceration is not a result of the war on drugs. Instead, they argue that the reality is that drug offenders make up about only 16% of the total population of prisoners. Out of the 16%, only about 5 to 6% are serving a sentence for non-violent offenses (Goodman, 2018). These arguments have been supported by findings from the US Bureau of Justice Statistics which have indicated that 53% of the offenders were convicted of violent offenses such as murder, robbery, and rape while drug offenders make up only 15%. Unlike other studies which have attributed war on drugs for the cause of mass incarceration in US society, these studies have a contrary factor. They suggest that mass incarceration was as a result of a response to violent crimes (Cummings, 2018). However, the findings from these studies acknowledge the role of racism towards disparities in the correctional systems.
Knowledgebase and Research
Various research findings have become popular for addressing issues on the war on drugs and exposing controversial issues on how state power was used to sentence thousands of young black population to what was considered as means of fighting drugs. Based on the history of the war on drugs, it can be considered as a means of socially controlling the Black people. This was associated with social control of Blacks during the Jim Crow. The conservative politicians have been associated with the development of the unfair laws and practices targeting minorities to regain their political power (Cummings, 2018). Hence, the War on Drugs was one of the mechanisms through which they could associate the Blacks with criminality and hold them back