It started with Nixon, according to Michelle Alexander in her book, "The New Jim Crow." But the War on Drugs really took off in 1982, under President Ronald Reagan’s administration. In short order, federal budgets for law enforcement sky-rocketed. FBI antidrug funding went from $8 million to $95 million; Department of Defense antidrug funding went from $33 million to $1,042 million; DEA funding went from $86 million to 1,026 million. Meanwhile, funding for drug treatment programs fell to a trickle.
The crack epidemic, which disproportionately hit low-income black neighborhoods, couldn’t have come at a better time for Reagan. While manufacturing jobs swiftly moved overseas, leaving devastating unemployment rates in black blue-collar communities, Reagan focused his efforts on waging a propaganda war to garner support for his War on Drugs. Articles featuring black “crack whores” and black male “predators” were widely distributed, painting the picture that the vast majority of drug users were dangerous and black. In reality, white people use/sell drugs at slightly higher rates than black people.
Things got even worse under Bill Clinton’s administration. By 1994, strict mandatory minimum sentences were already in place, banishing first time offenders caught with cocaine base, for example, to prison for five years when previously, one year was the highest sentence given for possessing any amount of any drug. Clinton introduced a “three strikes you’re out” law, which meant life sentences for many third drug offenses. He passed a law that stripped welfare and food stamps from anyone convicted of a felony drug offense, and cut public housing funding by $17 billion. When he passed a “one strike you’re out law” that prevented any convicted drug felon from applying to public housing, droves of poor black people became homeless.
In 1972, fewer than 350,000 people were in prison. Now, as crime rates have dipped, over 2 million people are in our prisons. We incarcerate people at rates six to 10 times higher than any other industrialized nation, and we imprison a higher percentage of our black population than South Africa ever did during apartheid. One in three African American men will serve time in prison; in Washington D.C. the number rises to three out of every four. These rates aren’t exceptions; they are the norm across America. This is mass incarceration, the result of the War on Drugs our country has been waging almost exclusively in poor minority communities, out of sight out mainstream society.
Here’s how it works: though local law enforcement originally resisted the “distraction” of the War on Drugs, once the government started offering them cash incentives, they came around. Millions of dollars comes from the Edward Byrne Memorial State and Local Law Enforcement Assistance Program, 40 to 90 percent of which goes towards narcotics task forces. Extra training, intelligence, and military weapons are also made available to agencies that dedicate their officers to highway drug interdiction.
With so much cash up for grabs, the goal became making as many drug-related arrests as possible. One tactic law enforcement has employed is sweeping buses and other public places in search of suspicious people, which an inordinate amount of the time are black. Police also occupy “ghettos” and other poor black communities in force, looking for opportunities to stop and frisk. Officers ask those suspected of drug activity if they can search them, and because no one can reasonably say no to a police officer, people in masse are searched on suspicion. What qualifies as “suspicious” is loosely defined, encouraging racial profiling. White people comprise 8 percent of such searches; black people comprise 85 percent.
Another tactic is pulling people over for small traffic violations, like not using a turn signal or stopping on a crosswalk. In Florida, troopers are cautioned to look for “scrupulous obedience to traffic laws” as a reason to stop people. Once pulled over, the police officer asks to search the vehicle, even if the traffic violation itself doesn’t require it. Often this means people lying spread-eagle on the side of the highway though they haven’t done anything to raise suspicions of drug activity. The police are looking for drugs, and 95 percent of the time, they find nothing. On the New Jersey turnpike, 85 percent of drivers are white people, who are statistically more likely to have illegal drugs. Yet, 42 percent of stops and 73 percent of arrests happen to black people. Arguing that black people break traffic laws more often is a dead end: blacks and whites break the laws at the same rates. This is the pattern seen all across America.
Most shocking of all are the seizure laws. Police agencies can keep up to 80 percent of the value of whatever they seize, giving incentives to take cash, cars, and homes of people suspected of drug use or sales. No one even has to be charged with a crime for a seizure to happen: suspicion is enough. The majority of such seizures happen to poor black people who can’t afford the court and lawyer fees to contest the loss of their property. 80 percent of seizures go unchallenged. Between 1988 and 1992, drug task forces seized over $1 billion in assets.
Black people spend 58.7 months on average in prison for a non-violent drug offense; white people spend 61.7 months on average for a violent offense. Upon release from prison, after serving high mandatory minimum sentences, ex-offenders – inordinately blacks and other minorities – find they are barred from rejoining society. It’s perfectly legal for employers in many industries to discriminate based on criminal past, and landlords are equally capable of denying homes on the same premise. With nowhere to live, no job, and fees from court and their imprisonment to pay, many ex-offenders have no choice but to rejoin the drug trade, or participate in other forms of illegal activity. Unable to pay child support, many lose their children. Within three years, 68 percent are ushered back to prison, where many of them will spend the rest of their lives.
The reality is, 1 million of the 2.3 million people incarcerated – nearly 50 percent – are black even though black people only make up 13.1 percent of the population. Something is wrong here. The War on Drugs has created a system of policing that inordinately seeks out and arrests people of color, strapping them with longer sentences on average and leaving them with a permanent record of criminality that bars them from rejoining society. Other than an exceptional few, getting charged with something as small as felony marijuana possession means game over. There is nowhere for ex-offenders to go but down.
Our laws, which every president since Nixon – including Barrack Obama – have supported, make mass incarceration possible. Federal funding chooses punishment over rehabilitation at heartbreaking rates, and we as a people sit idly by. Social justice activists are eerily silent towards what has become a human rights crisis. Racial indifference is itself a form of racism. We have to care about everyone, not just those who look like us. In our country’s history, we’ve yet to achieve that.
We know where the black men are. The question is: do we care enough to get them out?
