...declared a “War on Drugs” following a rise in popularity of recreational use of illicit substances. He largely increased the size of federal drug control agencies, in addition to putting in place mandatory minimum sentences. The amount of people in prison for nonviolent drug offenses increased from 50,000 in 1980 to over 400,000 by 1997 (A Brief History of the Drug War). Moreover, when we look at the demographics of our prisons, there is a large discrepancy. Thus, we are begged with the question: Why are our prisons disproportionately filled with brown-skinned people? The institutionalized racism that...
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...Congress was more concerned with marijuana use and heroin use, but that changed as the media continued to report on “black crime” and its link to crack cocaine. Soon cocaine specifically crack became the focal point of Congress legislation. The image of cocaine had shifted from the glamorous and wealthy to the violent inner-city gang banger. Len Bias was perceived as a crack cocaine overdose user an a up and coming NBA draft pick led to the most punitive anti-drug legislation passed and also expedited the process. The death of Bias, a clean cut African-American kid from a good family future shifted the public image of cocaine from glamorous and wealthy to the inner-city violence and African-Americans. Anti-drug Abuse Act of 1988 enacted mandatory...
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...the most dangerous and most wealthy criminal in history smuggling more than 80 percent of cocaine into the US. He started out selling cigarettes, fake lottery tickets, and stealing cars. Then he began to sell and smuggle marijuana but then quickly switched to cocaine. With the location of Columbia, it would be a short trip to Argentina and the United States, making it easy for transportation. Escobar murdered Fabio Restrepo, the head of the Medellin drug cartel at the time, and quickly moved in. He began to start trading cocaine because it was very valuable and was widely used illegally. At the height of Escobar's power, he made an amazing amount of money every day. More than $70 million a day. Over his career, his net worth is estimated to be over three billion....
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...possession of cocaine? | What are the penalties for possession of heroin? | What are the penalties for possession of prescription drugs? | What is the blood alcohol level for a driving while intoxicated (DWI) or driving under the influence (DUI) crime? | Is there extreme DWI or DUI? If so, what is the punishment? | Federal | | | | | | | <State 1> | | | | | | | <State 2> | | | | | | | <State 3> | | | | | | | 1. Where do you see the largest variance between federal and state anti-drug legislation? 2. What is the purpose of anti-drug legislation in relation to public order crime? Federal Despite medical cannabis laws in 40 states, cannabis is still illegal under federal law. Federal marijuana law. (2016). Retrieved from http://www.safeaccessnow.org/federal_marijuana_law Under federal law, a person with no prior federal or state convictions of possession of any narcotic who is convicted of a first offense of cocaine possession may be sentenced to not more than one year in prison, fined not less than $1,000, or both. A person convicted of cocaine possession after a prior conviction of possession of cocaine or any other narcotic in either federal or state court may be sentenced to not less than 15 days and not more than two years in prison, fined not less than $2,500, or both. Two or more prior convictions of possession of any narcotic in federal or state court may lead to a sentence of not less than 90 days in prison, a fine of...
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...A closed prison system is a type of prison system where the prisoners are not trusted to interact with society. It is mainly for prisoners whose escape would be highly dangerous to society. The prisoners in closed prisons are mostly categorized as Standard Escape Risk or High Escape Risk. Closed systems improve system wide prison safety, order and control ,as well as contribute to many positive unintended effects. A con of the closed system is that prison violence is not reduced in this system and since there is a high level of African Americans in these types of prisons, they may be racially motivated (Siegel and Bartollas, pg. 147, 2014). I do not think that the field of corrections seems to be appealing to female employees. Females, especially working in a jail or a prison, have to work extra hard to not be taken advantage of. Males and females alike in the prison will not take a female officer as seriously as they would a big male officer because of the lack in strength and, stereotypically, females tend to be softer than males emotionally. “The United States Sentencing Guidelines Manual 2D1.1(c) assigns a 1:100 ratio between [->0] . In other words, it treats 1 gram of crack as being equivalent to 100 grams of cocaine in drug quantity (Martinovich, 2005) One reason for the differences in punishment might be because crack is proven to be more addictive than powder cocaine. Another reason might be because crack is lower in cost per dose meaning that it is more widespread...
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...Today those laws are known as the Three Strikes laws. According to the Institute for the Advancement of Criminal Justice (2007, as cited in Wood, 2006), the purpose of the Three Strike Laws was to ensure longer prison sentences for those who commit felonies and have been previously convicted of serious felony offenses. Shortly after the passing of the Three Strikes Law, African Americans have been shown to be incarcerated at higher rates compared to Latinos and Caucasians. Ehlers, Schiraisds, and Lotke (2004), explored the impact of the Three Strikes Law on African Americans. Ehlers et al. posited two study questions: 1) How has California’s Three Strikes Law been applied to African Americans on a statewide basis; 2) How has California Three strikes laws been applied to African Americans on a county-by...
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...power but within limits. The Sentencing Reform Act was passed in 1984 in order to place strict guidelines on the judge’s discretion during sentencing (Rehavi p. 11). The United States Sentencing Committee wanted to make sentences equally fair for everyone while attempting to limit and remove any biases and opinions that a judge may have out of the courtroom. This system has many pros and just as many, if not more, cons. In reality, this only shifted power from the judge to the prosecutor. With the guidelines in place, prosecutors can determine which charges had the most weight regarding the offense and choose what to charge the criminal with. Once they chose which crime they were punishing them with they had a rough estimate of how much prison or jail time a defendant could be facing (Gazal-Ayal p. 132). This has shifted the power of sentencing from the judge to the prosecutors. Prosecutors have an enormous amount of control in the sentencing process. More than 95% of sentences come from guilty pleas, because of the plea deals that defendants are offered (Rehavi and Starr 2013 p. 10). The guidelines have an equation that calculates a range of time that a defendant could be sentenced to incarceration (Leonard –Kempf and Sample 2011 p. 114). The level of an offense is based on the crime plus various sets of circumstances that could either increase the level or decrease the level (Leonard-Kempf and Sample 2001 p.114). The prosecutor chooses what level of offense to charge them with...
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...Prison Overcrowding Prison overcrowding is a problem largely attributed to the increase of drug convictions. Decades of tough-on-crime laws coupled with minimal financing for treatment programs have left prisons overcrowded and under funded. With the advent of crack cocaine and the response of a scared nation President Ronald Reagan declared a war on drugs in 1982 (Clear, Cole, & Reisig, 2009). In 1987 congress implemented mandatory minimum sentencing effectively increasing the time served for drug offenses. The war on drugs has succeeded in increasing the amount of drug offenders incarcerated. In 1985 the average state drug offense sentence was 13 months, in 2002 that number jumped to 48 months. The government’s efforts to succeed have come at a high cost. State budgets and prison populations have exceeded their respective maximums, although crime rates and drug abuse numbers have dropped, the number of inmates incarcerated continues to rise. A possible solution to the overcrowding issue within prison is to insist a mandatory minimum law reform. This solution would be aimed at not only reducing the amount of time spent in the corrections system but also increasing the amount of drugs needed to qualify for the offense. Currently in the state of Kentucky if you sell a half a gram of cocaine you could get a possible sentence of 5-10 years for a class C felony; a possible alternative to this sentence is currently being considered. Under the possible new policy...
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...and how it correlates to the misconception that drug abuse and drug dealing activity is more prevalent among African American males in this age group. Another factor to be addressed is how society has victimized the black man in the “get tough on crime” and the “war on drug” movements. And finally, this paper will address how continued discrimination affects peoples’ ability to change. Race and Imprisonment in the United States Statistics show that African-American men make up 13.6 percent of the U.S. population and 40.2 percent of the U.S. prison population. Even though rates of drug use and selling are similar across the races, people of color are far more likely to be stopped, searched, arrested, prosecuted, convicted and incarcerated for drug law violations than are whites. Michelle Alexander, the author of "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness," wrote “ there are more African American men in prison and jail, or on probation and parole, than were slaves before the start of the Civil War” (Alexander, 2012, p. 118). Some blame the ‘war on drugs’ movement; others say it’s the ‘get tough on crime’ movement that is purposefully focusing on low...
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...there was Pablo Escobar , El Chapo and other cocaine leaders there was Griselda Blanco, a drug lord who was one of the first pioneers in the cocaine drug trade. La Dama de la Mafia, The Godmother, The Black Widow, Cocaine Queen of Miami, La Madrina, The Mafia Lady, and The Cocaine Godmother was only some of the alias that was given to Griselda Blanco. Marta Griselda Blanco was born on February 15,1954 in Cartagena, Colombia. At the age of three, her mother who was in the prostitution industry decided to move to Medellin, Colombia. Where she was abused by her mother, she decided to leave her side and live in the street. She became a criminal when she was only 11 years old. Blanco decided to kidnap a 10 year old boy from a very wealthy...
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...This is due to a long history of the United States of America’s war on drugs and its negative effects within underserved communities. Prior to the government’s pursuit against drug use, “many currently illegal drugs, such as marijuana, opium, coca, and psychedelics have been used for thousands of years for both medical and spiritual purposes” (Drug Policy Alliance). However, after certain drugs became associated with particular minority racial demographics, drugs gradually became criminalized. The Drug Policy Alliance, a group of advocates pushing for advanced drug policies, states that, “The first anti-opium laws in the 1870s were directed at Chinese immigrants. The first anti-cocaine laws, in the South in the early 1900s, were directed at black men. The first anti-marijuana laws, in the Midwest and the Southwest in the 1910s and 20s, were directed at Mexican migrants and Mexican Americans.” A large amount of the drug laws that are still in place today were initially established based less on science and testing and more on disparaging communities of people of color. This was displayed in the mid- 20th century when U.S. lawmakers stated that the term, marijuana, was Mexican slang for cannabis and enacted a ban on the drug that was laden with racist anti-Mexican rhetoric (About News). This type of bias criminalization was also demonstrated in...
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...Introduction With practices aimed at reducing discrimination such as affirmative action, the argument has been made that racial discrimination is no longer a pressing issue in American society.[1] It has further been argued that the Constitution protects all citizens, and race has no weight in the American criminal justice system.[2] While the United States Constitution guarantees equal treatment of all citizens, regardless of race, racism still exists in the American law enforcement and criminal justice systems. In this era with the end of official institutional racism, there has been a corresponding shift from de jure racism to a de facto racism where members of minority groups, especially African Americans, are subject to unequal protection of the laws and excessive in the American criminal justice system, particularly in drug law enforcement.[3] Drug law enforcement is far more discretionary than for other offenses. It is for the police to decide when and where they will seek to make drug arrests, and what priority they will place on enforcing drug laws.[4] Since the war on drugs began in the 1980s, two general trends have been identified. First, there has been a substantial increasing in the number of drug arrests overall; and second, black males have constituted an increasing proportion of these arrests.[5] Based on this evidence, it would be natural to assume that the number of arrests is proportional to the crime rate – that blacks began using drugs in...
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...Order. Meanwhile the DEA, teamed up with the CCA. They tryna lock niggas up They tryna make new slaves. See that's private owned prison- Kanye West Corporations is defined as Firm that meets certain legal to be recognized as having a legal existence, as an entity separate and distinct from its owners. Corporations are owned by their stockholders (shareholders) who share in profits and losses generated through the firm's operations, and have three distinct characteristics legal existence: a firm can (like a person) buy, sell, own, enter into a contract, and sue other persons and firms, and be sued by them. It can do well and be rewarded, and can commit offence and be punished. Limited liability: a firm and its owners are limited in their liability to the creditors and other obligors only up to the resources of the firm, unless the owners give personal-guaranties. Continuity of existence: a firm can live beyond the life spans and capacity of its owners, because its ownership can be transferred through a sale or gift of shares. Municipal authority of a town or city. A very large, usually diversified, firm. However, America and corporations go hand in hand. In the United States, where they say a prison population of up to 2 million – mostly Black and Hispanic – are working for various industries for a pittance. For the tycoons who have invested in the prison industry, it has been like finding a pot of gold. They don’t have to worry about strikes or paying unemployment insurance, vacations...
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...prisons held almost twice as many violent offenders as drug offenders; today, those serving time for drug violations outnumber violent criminals by three to one in federal penitentiaries. A recent study of New York state drug inmates showed that 78 percent had prior convictions for violent felonies and that almost half had never even been arrested on a charge of violence. (The New Republic, April 26, 1999) In 1986 Congress passed the "Rockefeller" drug laws, enacting statutes that allow drug crimes to be prosecuted in federal as well as state courts, and imposing brutal sentences. Most attention has been given to the 100 to one" clause, which treats crack 100 times more harshly than powder cocaine. For example, possession of five grams of crack cocaine triggers a five-year sentence, while 500 grams of powder cocaine is necessary to invoke the same sentence threshold. This rule affects blacks disproportionately: most crack defendants are black; most powder cocaine defendants are white. But the more basic bias in the law is class-based: crack cocaine is cheaper than powder cocaine. By jailing people for possession of small crack amounts but not small powder...
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...half, make more defendants eligible for the “safety valve”, and make crack cocaine sentencing reforms retroactive. The safety valve is a two-point reduction that allows an individual to come down from a mandatory minimum and be eligible for a sentence along the federal guidelines. This is only one of many suggestions that would help save taxpayers money, reduce the federal prison population, and result in fairer sentences for non-violent first time offenders. There are three main categories that can trigger a mandatory minimum. The most common penalty for mandatory minimums applies to drug trafficking. Under this statute the minimum must be met if there is a particular type of drug that exceeds a certain amount, a sale to someone under the age of 21, the employment of an individual under the age of 21, and/or occurring within 1,000 feet of a school zone. The second most common is a consecutive mandatory minimum sentence when there is possession or use of a firearm in connection with certain underlying offenses. The third and most frequently applied mandatory minimum is triggered by a defendant’s prior criminal history (18 U.S.C .924 (c)). There are two possible ways to avoid a mandatory minimum sentence; one is “substantial assistance” and two is the “safety valve”. These relief mechanisms bring defendants under the mandatory minimum and therefore are sentenced under the guidelines. Overcrowding of prisons in America is an ongoing problem that continues to...
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