...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 greater numbers since the 1980s and continue to up to the present day. In reality however, it appears that this is simply not the case. In 2000, a black male had the same likelihood of being a monthly drug user as did a white male (6.4%), while a Hispanic male was slightly less likely (5.3%). At the same time however, blacks represented 32% of arrests for drug possession.[6] With the greater...
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...23 February, 2014 The Social Problem of Drugs and Alcohol The most serious social problem in chapter 1-5 is the war on drugs and alcohol. This social problem has been in American society since 1971 when President Nixon declared the war on drugs and said drug abuse as “public enemy number one in the United States.” Drugs and alcohol creates many negative effects on society, creates other social problems, and is difficult if not impossible to stop. There are many negative effects on society caused by drugs and alcohol. In the United States they spend more than $51,000,000,000 annually on the war on drugs and alcohol, this is a long term problem, because we are wasting money trying to catch criminals, and drug addiction has stayed almost the same since the 1970’s, so all this spending is obviously not doing anything to stop the war on drugs. 60 % of people federally imprisoned in the United States were convicted of drug charges. Society is paying a huge price on keeping these people convicted in prison, when most of them were convicted of non-violent drugs charges. The government should have rehabilitation programs were people convicted of non-violent drug charges could go, it would save a ton of money because the rehabilitation programs would be shorter and cheaper than keeping people locked up for years and years. All this money is being wasted on trying to win a war you just cannot win, ones desire to escape reality with drugs and alcohol, is stronger then the will to stop...
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...RACISM IN THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM By Nichole Griffith Advised by Professor Chris Bickel SOC 461, 462 Senior Project Social Sciences Department College of Liberal Arts CALIFORNIA POLYTECHNIC STATE UNIVERSITY June, 2012 © 2012 Nichole Griffith Table of Contents Research Proposal ............................................................................................................................1 Annotated Bibliography ...................................................................................................................2 Outline..............................................................................................................................................6 Introduction ......................................................................................................................................7 Research ..........................................................................................................................................8 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................29 Bibliography .................................................................................................................................31 Research Proposal The goal of my research is to expose the racism in the criminal justice system that is so hidden. I want to show how racism contributes to the huge number...
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... and victims of this system, but her arguments lack the depth to stand against counterarguments. Primarily, Alexander links mass incarceration’s cause of the War on Drugs. Her secondary cause for this phenomenon appears after this war begins; many defendants cannot obtain “meaningful legal representation” (Alexander 17), a claim which widely goes undisputed. Meanwhile, the argument that “convictions for drug offenses —not violent crime—are the single most important cause of the prison boom in the United States” (Alexander 102), a repetitive argument in her book, sparks controversy. Scholars, such as Pfaff, believe that writers distort the role of drug convictions due to focusing on only...
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...and income. It is because of these drastic changes that people often have the assumption that racism no longer plagues the nation. It is because of these drastic shifts in era that people assume we overcame racism. It is because of this assumption that government officials are able to push the false narrative that black people, through their many years of suffering, have finally overcome racism and triumphed over oppression. That itself is an example of violence. In the reading, “The New Jim Crow” Michelle Alexander states when speaking on Obama's rise to presidency,“There’s an implicit yet undeniable message embedded in his appearance on the world stage: this...
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...The emergence of social justice as an opponent of systemic racism abolished sanctioned institutional racism and left individual racism as a weak, dying sign of ignorance. But, in all of its successes, social justice has failed to cure the black community of poverty—the problem to which black Americans’ disproportionate crime rate can ultimately be attributed. The statistics for black crime do not indicate that is some innate aggressiveness in blacks; rather, the statistics point to a number of significant factors that contribute to and account for the disproportionate crime rate of black Americans. Centuries of racism have landed black Americans in a seemingly inescapable trench of poverty. This trench was dug deeply by a number of racist institutions:...
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...Ted Turner, Michael Bloomberg, Barack Obama, Michael Phelps, and Carl Sagen all have in common? All have either admitted to growing, and or smoking marijuana. Peculiar, to say the least, all of these extremely influential people would be prosecuted and possibly arrested had they had been caught partaking in these illegal acts. If one were to go back to the time of George Washington’s presidency and take a glimpse at the first president’s garden they would be shocked to see that the leader of the American Revolutionary War Army grew marijuana. The growth of cannabis in today’s world carries quite a hazy perception. Most people would be shocked at the thought of someone; much less the president was growing marijuana. It is in this perception in which the problem stems, why be shocked? Why think less of person? Why even consider Marijuana to be this life-threatening, lazy causing, brain cell killer, schedule one drug? Marijuana is the most commonly used illegal drug in America today. It is estimated that one hundred million people have admitted to smoking marijuana. However the winds of reform and legalization have begun to sweep this nation. Americans, now more than ever, are advocating the legalization of marijuana, as seen recently by two states legalizing the plant for recreational use. I, for one, am a strong advocate for the recreational use and legalization of marijuana in the United States. I have found that to understand why marijuana was illegal in the first place, one...
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...Topic: Racism Racism - Boundless Open Textbook. (2015, July 21). Retrieved February 07, 2016, from https://www.boundless.com/sociology/textbooks/boundless-sociology-textbook/race-and-ethnicity-10/race-79/racism-473-3288/ This website provides straightforward information on racism and how it applies to sociology. It discusses racism as a social fact and covers individual, structural, cultural, and historical racism. Racism is when discrimination occurs based solely on inherent traits in a racial group. This site is useful because it provides a foundation for information on racism and key term while giving you a general overview and helps you understand other resources better. I could see the control theory working with some of the content of this source, while it’s purely informational source it contains the fact the racism can be deliberate and that given the opportunity that people will have racist thoughts or actions eventually. One thing that is missing in this source is that it lacks clear examples on the outcomes of racism. It clearly defines it and shows the responses to racism like affirmative action but it fails to show any type of real world actions. This is related to sociology because of lists key points and facts about racism. Racism has a larger effect on the population and society. Eckholm, E. (2008, May 05). Racial Disparities Found to Persist as Drug Arrests Rise. Retrieved February 07, 2016, from http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/06/us/05cnd-disparities...
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...this moment in history, a time when millions are cycling in and out of our nation’s prisons and jails trapped in a parallel social universe in which discrimination is perfectly legal? How do we show care and concern for the children who are born into communities where the majority of men and growing numbers of women can expect to spend time behind bars? What must we do, now that we know that the usual justifications do not hold water, and that a human rights nightmare is occurring on our watch? The New Jim Crow begins and ends with the assertion that nothing short of a major social movement holds any hope of ending mass incarceration in the United States. If we were to return to the rates of incarceration we had in the 1970s—before the drug war and get tough movement gained steam—we would have to release four out of five people who are in prison today. More than a million people employed by the criminal...
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...The counter cultural movement began in 1960s in the wake of Vietnam war. The young people were frustrated due to racism, gender issues, consumerism, and the conservative nature of society in general. They were looking for a change and found it in the emerging counter cultural movements of 1960s. The youngsters began to question the traditional values and culture of the Orthodox American society. They welcomed sex, drugs and pop music. The counter culture movement reached its heights in 1969, when the young people attended the Woodstock Music and Art Festival at Newyork. The festival became a symbol of anti-war movement. The festival was a mixture of hippie, pop and drug culture. One of the notable feature of the counter culture movement was the sexual freedom and rise of feminism. There was a steep rise in abortions, orphans and divorce. Political activism on the part of women resulted in the formation of National organization for Women (NOW). Other than women, homosexuals were also raised their voice for equality which was later included the Civil Rights issue. Stone Wall Inn riots in 1969 and the establishment of Gay Liberation Front were important steps in their struggle for civil rights. The counter cultural sentiments were also expressed in movies and arts. The movement did not limit in North America alone, but spread to Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand. An international rock and roll group from Britain known as the Beatles was widely popular. The counter culture...
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...unfairness toward poor and working black populations and examples of those unfair treatments, such as the War on Drugs strategy and how the criminal justice system is wrong. Alexander argues that the society is not fair towards poor and working black populations in today’s society because the amount of unjustifiable sentences and racial discriminations. Although, she does admit that it has improved a little. For example, she states, “The superlative nature of individual black achievement today in formally white domains is a good indicator that the old Jim Crow is dead, but does not necessarily mean the end of racial caste.” (21) In this specific example, the author does believe that racial caste still exists and that colored people are still being mistreated; Although, the Old Jim Crow has died. She believes that the Old Jim Crow strategy has died because Barack Obama was a colored president and that is the highest someone could be in an office, meaning it represented a black achievement. As there are some improvements made in the federal system, she believes that it still needs a lot of work done, in terms of equality. Based on Alexander’s studies, she argues that the War on Drugs strategy was designed to remove people of color from political processes. For example, black people make up 90 percent of drug felons; however, whites are known to associate themselves with more drugs. (21) This indicates that black people are more discriminated by police, than whites. The author explains...
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...Being labeled a felon has and continue to affect the lives of those who truly are rehabilitated, especially African Americans, limiting their success thereafter release. Lastly, one must examine the historical basis of racism in the Criminal Justice system. As a future Social Worker, effective efforts to address these above-mentioned issues require an in-depth understanding of high incarceration rates of African American males. Also, there must be understanding of the differences in sentencing practices of African Americans versus Caucasians. The Emergence of High Incarceration Rates Shortly, after the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement, Conservatives viewed civil rights allowed by blacks resulted in disobedience to the law. In addition, Civil Rights Leaders took action in an effort to desegregate public schools, restaurant, and other establishments that blacks were not allowed to frequent. During this era civil rights leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King...
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...experimentation proving its harmfulness. However, it didnt quite go down like that, in fact, its detest history was triggered due to racism, fear, biased propaganda, and protection of corporate industries. I will be covering many topics over marijuana in this journey through its history, but to begin, we need to go over the background history of this plant. For a substantial time of human history, marijuana was completely legal. As a matter of fact, it has been illegal for just over 1% of the time its been discovered and used. Marijuana was used known as far back as 7000 B.C, and legal as recent as 1910. It was introduced to the United States as early as the 1600’s , but wasn’t recognized as a recreational drug until the early 1900’s. The very first marijuana law was enacted in 1619 in Jamestown Colony, Virginia. Believe it or not, this was not a law against marijuana, this law was made to order every farmer to grow hemp seed, and they weren’t the only ones. Over...
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...Racism during the Civil War Racism has always been enforced, since the beginning of the world to nowadays. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, racism is defined, as a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities. Racism is a specific form of prejudice, which involves prejudicial attitudes towards members of an ethnic group. Racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race. Sadly, some individuals believe that another person is less human than them. Some of the most common causes of racism are skin, color, language, customs or place of birth. Racial prejudice deals with terrible and hostile pre-judgments, opinions, and actions towards a race. Moreover, racism has some devastating effects. It can destroy a person's self esteem, community cohesion and even creates divisions in society. Racism has influenced wars, slavery, the formation of nations and legal codes. In addition, racism has been used as a powerful weapon encouraging fear and hatred of others in times of conflict and war. For this reason, during the Civil War, a huge presence of racism existed. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest shows the different types of racism present during the Civil War. During the Civil War, Africans Americans were treated as slaves, thus people were racist against them. Although slavery was phased out of existence in the North, it was expanding on the South. The majority of the slaves worked on large cotton plantations, but many other...
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...“The life where nothing was ever unexpected. Or inconvenient. Or unusual. The life without color, pain or past.” (Lois Lowry). This quote defines a dystopia. A dystopia is an imagined place or state in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmentally degraded one. On the other side is a utopia where everything is perfect. They both relate to each other as they are an imagined place or state. There are tons of problems in the world today. One of them being pollution. Pollution has caused problems for everyone. Fishes and sea creatures are being affected because of water pollution, air pollution causing millions of people their lives. The Sulfur Dioxide emissions engender acid rain and prompt chronic respiratory disease. Lung cancer, heart disease, even damage to the brain nerves, liver or kidneys. To fix these problems I should purpose zero emission cars, prohibiting the use of cars running on diesel or petrol. Zero emission cars run on electricity produce no air pollution and noise pollution. Also banning the use of natural resources that can cause pollution and using wind and water to generate electricity. These raw materials are harmful and can run out. On the other hand Wind and Water power are a great source for generating energy at a low cost infinitely. Another issue that exists in our community is shortage of money for a lot of people. Money is the current medium of exchange in the form of coins and banknotes; coins and...
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