Last Thursday was a victory for progress in America. As reported by The Washington Post, “The Justice Department plans to end its use of private prisons after officials concluded the facilities are both less safe and less effective at providing correctional services than those run by the government.” With reports of poor conditions, higher costs, deaths, and ineffectiveness, it’s amazing that private prisons have been operating in full swing since the 1980s.
The elimination of private prisons is a small but good victory, and although the the prisons will not close overnight, the ruling alone helps us to spotlight and confront problems within criminal justice, one of which being the war on drugs.The war on drugs, if you didn’t know, started during the Nixon years, when President Nixon added marijuana to the list of schedule one drugs, ignoring calls from his Republican appointed commission that recommended decriminalizing the possession and distribution of marijuana for personal use. The effort was strengthened during Reagan's presidency at a time when recreational use of drugs was on the decline. It has since ballooned the amount of American’s incarcerated for drug offenses by 1000%. The motivations are easy enough to distinguish, as with most things that horrify us, it’s politics. It’s been well reported that Nixon was paranoid, and as described by one of his former aids in the 1990s, "We couldn't make it illegal to be against the war [Vietnam] or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and the blacks with heroine, and criminalizing them both heavily, we could disrupt those communities." Nixon and Reagan's war on drugs broke up the infrastructure of communities that they viewed would give them a political and perceptual edge. When Clinton was elected in the ‘90s the motivation was once again political. The public was against drug abuse, and Clinton wanted to appear tough on crime.
The impact of these selfish political motivations (on both sides of the isle) was tearing the fabric of entire communities. Unjustly punishing individuals disproportionately to the crime the committed. Take Weldon Angelos for example. He was recently released from prison after serving 13 years of a 55 year sentence for selling marijuana, a sentence his own judge didn’t want to impose. The archaic federal restrictions on drugs, especially marijuana don’t seem to make sense, Angelos described his crime as “Something that would have netted me maybe six months in the state system.” But instead he was looking down the barrel of spending the rest of his life behind bars, where he wouldn't be able to be with his family and father his kids to adulthood.
This brings up another problem the war on drugs creates, which is the destruction of African American communities. The war on drugs seems to have been founded on racist political principles, and clearly has had racial effects, as one in three black men can expect to spend time in prison. As described by John McWhorter, associate professor of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, single parent homes have become the norm in black communities, with the war on drugs playing an integral part in creating that culture of absence. This destroys families, putting single mothers in a position that could sometimes seem impossible, supporting a family by herself. It also put children in tough positions, having to grow up without the support of two parents, which can be a critical piece in the success of a child. In short, the war on drugs has destroyed lives, families, and entire communities.
Another impact of the war on drugs is economic. According to a White House report, 50% of all federal prisoners are spending time for drugs, and incarceration in the United States costs $80 billion a year. Also, in 2010, the government spent over $15 billion fighting the war on drugs, that's a rate of $500 a second. This fight in the name of decreasing recreational drug use has seemingly had the opposite effect, as the US is now the number one nation in illegal drug use.
The war on drugs has a racist and elitist history, its effects might be exactly what Nixon and Reagan had in mind, although it's antithetical to what they sold the public. People's lives and futures have been obliterated, taxpayers have shelled out billions to no avail, and the US has done nothing to stop the problem initially isolated. Combine that with the fact that marijuana has medical benefits, is less harmful than alcohol, and is supported by the public, and it leaves you wondering: Why do we accept this critical flaw in our criminal justice system?
