War on Drugs?

Currently, the American population sits at 312,000,000. The number of Americans currently behind bars is over 2,000,000 strong and climbing. In a totally fair world, that population would closely resemble the general population, but this world is not fair. Currently over forty percent of the United States prison population consists of African-Americans. This is from a group that makes up only twelve percent of the total United States population. Blacks find themselves in prison five to ten times more frequently than whites and Hispanics. Some will tell you it’s racism, others will say poverty. Some will even say that 12% of the population honestly is committing 40% of the crime. I don’t believe it is a result of any of these. The War on Drugs, coupled with mandatory minimum sentencing and three strikes laws have created a devastating one-two punch. The data I uncovered in my research led me to one conclusion: the War on Drugs is a disaster. The only results we’ve seen are prison overcrowding thanks to the absurd amount of people locked up for drug violations, excess costs incurred by our law enforcement, and an entire generation of black children growing up without their fathers on account of the number unfairly punished by the War on Drugs.

            America is home to the largest prison population in the world. Out of a total of 10.1 million prisoners worldwide, America is home to 2.29 million prisoners (World Prison Population 2011). We also are owners of the highest rate of imprisonment with 743 out of every 100,000 people in prison, compared to a worldwide average of 146 per 100,000. How did America, Land of the Free^TM, end up with so many imprisoned? Today’s prison population represents a tenfold increase in prison population over the last thirty years (US Prison Population Tops 2.4 Million). Why is our prison population so high? According to the above article, mandatory minimum sentencing is largely to blame. Laws written to protect people from serious and violent crimes have instead sent nonviolent offenders to jail in ever increasing numbers. Almost three fourths of new inmates are nonviolent offenders. Between 1980 and 2000, the number of drug related offenders in prison has increased by a factor of twelve as a result of the war on drugs. The most vulnerable tend to be minorities at the bottom of the income bracket.

             As of 2008, the US Census estimates blacks made up 12.33% of all Americans. Hispanics totaled 15.08% of America. Whites make up 65.87% of the population, still the majority by a wide margin. Asians make up a very small portion of America, comprising only 4.37% of the population. In the prison world, blacks make up 43.7% of the population. This bit of over representation follows the minorities, but none to the huge impact it has on blacks. The only group that shows a lower percentage in prison than in the rest of America is whites (Prison Policy Iniative). The percentage of black people in prison exceeds the percentage in the general population in every single state in the union. In twenty states, blacks find themselves incarcerated at a rate five times higher than in the general population. Nearly one in four black people are either in prison, on parole, or on probation. The rate of incarceration for black men aged 18-64 is more than seven times higher than that of white men of the same age range. When seeking to understand how we find ourselves at this stage, there are only a couple options. Either black people are indeed committing nearly ten times as much crime as white people or there is some form of bias in the system.