Jefferson Chen
Professor Queen
Writing 39C
21 February 2013
Essay of Prospective Claims:
Michelle Alexander discusses how mass incarceration has ruined and dismantled many lives of young African Americans. The problem she discusses so passionately in her book is a relevant problem in our society today. Ever since Ronald Reagan’s presidency and forward, campaigns have been targeting crime and especially rug related crimes. While it is clear that many of these young African Americans are going to prison due to drug related crimes, stopping the war on drugs altogether is not the solution. Although stopping the drug war may seem efficient for stopping the incarceration of young blacks in the present, it does not guarantee that these same people will not commit other crimes. The cost for stopping the drug war is allowing drug usage and distribution to run rampant which can cause the society and the neighborhoods around the areas to become unsafe. Alexander discusses how there is no way around this issue and dismantling the system of mass incarceration is the only resolution; however if these poor neighborhoods were funded with government money, drug abuse can potentially become lower or even be stopped.
Alexander is also discussing how a handful of reforms cannot be a solution to the problem. She argues that all the financial grants that are given to police departments for drug arrests and racial profiling should be halted. She believes that by halting the funding and supplies of mass incarceration are only scratching the surface of social reform. She believes there must be a change in the culture of law enforcement. By stopping mass incarceration Alexander believes that, that is the first step in racial integration. The costs of stopping mass incarceration are high for the government and prison systems. By stopping their reimbursements, drug related crimes may start t rise and flood cities. If there are no monetary compensation for fighting against drug and the drug war, police departments may look elsewhere to get these reimbursements. Many scholars believe that the resolution to these social problems is not halting mass incarceration. Alexander argues that the war on drugs is a high contributor in regards to causing poverty and unemployment. She believes that lives are being destroyed due to the war on drugs because these criminals are getting heavier punishments than they should be. In chapter six of her book called “Let’s Talk About Race- Resisting the Temptation of Colorblind Advocacy” discusses how the lives of drug offenders are ruined after one harsh sentence because employers and housing will reject them. People in society tend to not want to hire drug offenders or a person who has a criminal record, and that is what Alexander is trying to argue. In chapter six she is trying to explain how the war on drugs is the central cause in social issues and how society need not stop trying to prevent crime, but the war on drugs itself needs to be stopped. What Alexander is arguing in this chapter can be backed up with evidence by Rodriguez Francisco.
In Rodriguez’s research he examines inmates who are in for drug offense. This study Rodriguez constructs is to examine if the family background of drug offenders have any relationship with drug offenders. In his research he discovers that there is a positive correlation between drug offenders and their family history of having drug offenses. This study shows that people who have relatives or any family member that has been convicted of a drug offense is more likely to be a drug offender than those who do not have any family relations. Moreover, people whose family are associated with drug offenders tend to experiment with drugs at an earlier age than those who do not.
Andrew Hartman, discusses that prison money is one the fastest booming industries right now. In his article he describes how the U.S. population constitutes of 5 percent of the world’s population, but U.S. has a incarceration percentage of 25 percent of the world. This describes how severe the presidents have been on the war on drugs. This article Hartman writes can help expand on Alexander’s claim. The war on drugs affects the lives of many Americans and is highly beneficial to the prison industries. Alexander is against this and argues that the war on drugs should be stopped immediately and funding for the war on drugs should stop as well. Hartman describes in his article that the politicians are getting funded by the owners of the prison industries by the millions when campaigning. In return these politicians seem to pass laws in favor of the prison system. Hart goes on in his article discussing how the prisons make money off of inmates. Companies buy and sell chairs made especially for prison inmates so they cannot attack an officer while he is being questioned. These chairs have supposedly caused a multitude of deaths among inmates but despite this fact, these chairs are still widely sold. This discussion about monetary gain and prison systems seems to spark the war on drugs. A solution that can solve the problem of mass incarceration is stopping the funds of these prison systems. The business side of the prison system seems to be what is sparking all the influx of inmates in the United States. It can be inferred that if the business is cut down to minimal monetary support by the government, than politicians won’t get as much as a campaign bonus, causing them to not support prison laws as much.

Source Evaluations 5-10
1. Publisher: The publisher for this source is the European Journal of Psychology Applied to Legal Context.
Relevance: This source examines the history of drug offenders. It measures if there is a correlation between family history of drug offenders compared to people who have no family related drug offenders.
Comprehensiveness: The main argument of this journal discusses that people who have a family history of drug offenders are not only more likely to become drug offenders, but also will be more likely to start abusing drugs at a younger age.
Timeliness: This article is relevant today and is well timed in its publication because it is a major problem in America today. With the knowledge of this study policy makers can adapt and change rehabilitation to prevent new generations from abusing drugs.
Evidence: The evidence this article uses is a direct test they did. The test involved 157 inmates in Villabona. The author than describes the results of this test in his article.
2. Publisher: The publisher for this source is Humanist is the property of American Humanist Association.
Relevance: This topic is relevant to my paper because it discusses how the prison system can become very profitable. These profits help fund many policy makers which in return can purposely make drug laws harsher.
Comprehensiveness: The main argument in this article is discussing how prison systems today make an extraordinarily amount of money. The problems it examines is how these profits usually tend to fund the campaigns of politicians which in return make more drug laws.
Timeliness: The article is prevalent in America today in many ways. It discusses how the prison system makes its money and how it uses the money. It also shows that policy makers can be influenced due to the substantial amount of money that they are given.
Evidence: This article cites a multitude of sources and evidence such as “For Justice Against Prison” which is a magazine published in March 2000. The article also refers to the World Trade Organization and many other sources.
3. Publisher: The publisher for this article is the New York University Law Review. The author is James Forman.
Relevance: This topic is related to my paper because James Forman, the author, provides many arguments expanding on Alexander’s book. He discusses racial issues extensively and explains how he interprets them. This can be useful in my paper by incorporating any type of counter example.
Comprehensiveness: The main argument this article is trying to discuss is that yes there are racial problems in society today; however these problems are not all derived from mass incarceration. Forman argues that it is apparent that there is racial discrimination in the prison system, but also says that not all the charges are due to drug offenses.
Timeliness: This article is relevant to many social issues arising in America today. People view the prison system as a bunch of African Americans put in their because of the crimes they have committed but do not understand a multitude of their crimes are drug related and not malicious.
Evidence: The author uses a plethora of evidence in his article. He not only uses his own personal experience, but cites and quotes a multitude of other scholars and journals. He discusses the aura of the original Jim Crow Laws and contrasted it to mass incarceration.
4. Publisher: The publisher of this article is Nation Company, L.P. The author of this article is Ira Glasser.
Relevance: This article discusses how drug arrests are a matter of racial discrimination. This article can be used in my essay to help support Alexander’s claim and to help form a solution to the problem.
Comprehensiveness: The central argument that this article is discussing is how minority races are being targeted throughout and displays the disproportionate number of minorities in prison.
Timeliness: The timeliness of this article is relevant to what is being discussed today. Many politicians discuss drug related laws. This article examines how these drug laws politicians are making are one sided and are showed by the large disproportionate number of minorities in the prison system.
Evidence: This article uses evidence such as the American Sociological Review. It also overviews court cases such as Brown v. Board of Education. The article she writes includes evidence to support her claims and to show the disproportions of races in the prison system.
5. Publisher: The publisher for this article is the Washington & Lee Law Review.
Relevance: This article discusses the aspects of drugs and drug related crimes. McMillian argues that the only way to solve drug crimes is to regulate them. This is relevant to my research topic as it provides a solution to the problem of mass incarceration.
Comprehensiveness: This article addresses many issues of drug related crimes. McMillian discusses that as one drug dealer is put away or is murdered, another one simply takes his place. The only solution is to regulate these drug crimes since if there is a demand there is a supply.
Timeliness: This topic is highly debated among politicians today. The regulation of many drugs seems to be going back and forth since there are many issues that can arise from the legalization of other drugs.
Evidence: This journal uses a multitude of sources to provide evidence for its central claim. He cites other scholars such as Gary Becker and also uses the U.S. Department of Justice, Sourcebook of Criminal Statistics 2003 to back his claim in his argument.
Annotated Bibliographies 5-8
1. Nate McMillian is an Associate Professor at Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School. McMillian discusses a topic that has been politically argued. McMillian cites numerous sources in his discussion such as other scholars, Gary Becker, and statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice, Sourcebook of Criminal Statistics 2003. McMillians audience can be narrowed down to those studying politics and drugs. His central claim is to discuss how legalization and regulating drugs is the only way to stop and prevent drug crimes.
2. Ira Glasser is the retired head of the American Civil Liberties Union and is also the president of the board of Drug Policy Alliance. Glasser discusses the substantial incarcerations of minority races, implying that there is racial discrimination in the prison system. She uses evidence such as the American Sociological Review to prove her argument. The audience of this article is toward scholarly readers or policy makers, and the purpose is to make these people aware of the insurmountable number of disproportionate minorities in the criminal justice system.
3. James Forman is a graduate of Brown University and Yale Law School. He published an article in the New York Law Review discussing mass incarceration and the appearance of the New Jim Crow. He lists a plethora of evidence such as, quoting and citing other scholarly journals or books. His audience is to people who care about policy making and the purpose of his article is to bring awareness to the social issues present in the American prison system.
4. Andrew Hartman is a social science teacher at Thornton High School in Denver, Colorado. He wrote an article discussing prison systems and how they are monetarily profitable. The evidence he uses include “For Justice Against Prison” which is a magazine published in March 2000 and the World Trade Organization. The purpose of his article is to examine how prison systems are booming in the economy and are making profits and using those profits to fund campaigns for politicians, making the politicians more biased toward drug laws.
5. This article was published by Rodriguez Francisco, Bringas Carolina, Rodriguez Luis, Lopez-Cepero Javier, Perez Beatriz, and Estrada Critsina. The authors graduated from University of Oviedo, University of Sevilla, and the University of Guadalarjara. These authors constructed a study and then wrote an argument discussing family history correlating with drug offenders. The evidence they provide is within their study done at Villabona, where 157 prison inmates were asked questions. The audience for this study was mainly for people who care about drug offenders and the correlation between their families being drug offenders as well, and the purpose for this study was to show that yes there is a positive correlation between the family of drug abusers and drug abusers themselves.