Fighting the Drug War
What is the most significant problem facing the criminal justice system today? Why?
The fact that using recreational drugs is illegal in the United States has always been controversial from a civil rights standpoint. But it is also controversial because of the disproportionate effect it has had upon communities of color. Individuals of African-American and Latino ancestry are penalized at a rate far greater and more severely for drug crimes than their white counterparts—prosecutors are twice more likely to pursue a mandatory minimum sentence against individuals of color for drug crimes, and 80% of individuals in federal prison are either Black or Latino (“Race and the Drug War,” 2018). Discrimination in the prosecution of the drug war has also had an indirect effect upon the electoral policy of the United States, given that one in 13 voters are denied their right to vote because of laws that prevent individuals with felony convictions from voting (“Race and the Drug War,” 2018).
Instead of prosecuting individuals for drug crimes wholesale, a more nuanced attitude to drug crimes must be adopted. First and foremost, decriminalization of marijuana should be a priority. Many states have already begun the process of legalization, and the fact that an African-American individual is four times as likely than a white individual to be arrested for the same marijuana-related offense highlights the injustices that are rife in both the drug war and this specific component of the drug war (Resing, 2018). The drug war heavily penalizes individuals from communities of color, thus inhibiting their job prospects and other freedoms that white individuals who similarly use recreational drugs do not experience. Instead of using punitive methods such as incarceration, particularly for lower-level offenses, a more compassionate and effective approach would be to offer increased access to treatment for addiction, and treating drug addiction not like a war but as an illness.
References
Race and the drug war. (2018). Drug Policy Alliance. Retrieved from: https://www.drugpolicy.org/issues/race-and-drug-war
Resing, C. (2018). Marijuana legalization is a racial justice issue. ACLU. Retrieved from: https://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform/drug-law-reform/marijuana-legalization- racial-justice-issue
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