And are their respective laws and enforcement practices brown
Legal Studies Integrating project – 4099U
Dr. Dennis Molinaro
Race Defines the Problem
While African-Americans have been disproportionately targeted by anti-drug efforts, some who support the war on drugs may not see this as a problem because they view drug law enforcement as protecting minority communities from addiction, harassment, and violence. Perhaps unknowingly, they have adopted the same concept of discrimination that the courts apply in equal protection cases under the Constitution: if there is no malice, there is no discrimination (Fornili, 2018). The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), which the United States has ratified, has different requirements for a finding of racial discrimination than the United States' constitutional jurisprudence, which only requires a racially disparate effect.
Who Engages in Drug Offences
However, plaintiffs in civil rights litigation can still argue that U.S. laws ought to be interpreted in light of the treaty, even if the treaty itself does not provide a basis for a cause of action. The Convention reflects an international consensus on the importance of ending all forms of racial discrimination, including those that are subtle and cloaked in colorblind legislation, regardless of the possibility of legal repercussions. The United States, which views itself as an international leader in the promotion of racial equality, does not want to be seen as violating or ignoring its treaty obligations. To bring attention to and build support for measures to eliminate racial injustice in the United States' war on drugs and so many other aspects of American life, ICERD provides a potent rights-based framework (Blankenship, 2018). Many government officials are still in the dark about ICERD. A concerted effort to promote the ideals and promises of the Convention might alter that.
Crack addiction, as well as the associated noise and violence, was most noticeable in low-income, urban, minority neighborhoods in the 1980s and 1990s. This was true even though crack use was not confined to these areas. More shocking than the dismay felt by locals was the widespread condemnation and outrage expressed by those from outside the area, fueled by sensationalist media stories and politicians eager to gain political clout (Daniels, 2021). Since politicians and the media initially focused on the alleged effects of crack in inner-city neighborhoods, those areas have been and continue to be the primary "fronts" in the war on drugs, despite the fact that many of the alleged effects were later proven to have been greatly exaggerated or just plain wrong.
Crack in black communities served as a flashpoint for a web of intertwined racial, class, political, social, and moral tensions. Using racially coded language about drugs and crime, politicians won over a white electorate worried about its declining status. Substance abuse and gun violence were the main topics of conversation, but racial tensions were clearly implied. Powder cocaine, which is more expensive, was thought to be a drug of the wealthy white upper class, while crack cocaine was associated with the Black urban poor. The legislative response can be better understood when framed in the context of the drug's impact on different social classes and races. State laws mandating prison terms for even low-level drug offenses were a prominent part of that response, as were the federal Anti-Drug Abuse Acts of 1986 and 1988, which imposed far harsher penalties for possession or sale of crack cocaine than powder cocaine.
More than twenty-five million adults were arrested for drug offenses in the United States between the years 1980 and 2007. Since 1980, the percentage of arrests where black men or women were involved has risen from 27% to a high of 40% to 42% between 1989 and 1993, before gradually falling to its current level of 35%. Arrests for drug crimes have historically disproportionately affected blacks compared to whites. In 1980, black people were arrested at a rate that was nearly three times higher than that of white people. Between 1988 and 1993, the disparity between black and white arrest rates was at its worst. An average of 3.5-3.9 times higher than the rate among whites, the rate of drug arrests among blacks has fluctuated over the past six years.
The racial disparity in drug arrests persists despite shifts in both drug use and law enforcement priorities, which have occurred since the mid-1990s, when the ratio of black to white arrests was at its highest. Law enforcement shifted its focus from crack cocaine to marijuana as the crack cocaine market shrank and cocaine use leveled off in major cities (Myers, 2020). In the late 1990s, methamphetamine production and use became a focus of police attention. Despite the fact that people of all races use marijuana and white people use methamphetamine more than any other race, black people continue to be arrested at a much higher rate than white people.
For victims of bias in the criminal justice system, the burdensome requirement of proof of intent has been an insurmountable obstacle to obtaining justice. Attempts to challenge drug laws based on equal protection grounds have consistently failed. Drug laws or practices that do not discriminate explicitly on the basis of race have been upheld by courts on the relaxed "rational basis" standard in the absence of proof of discriminatory intent, i.e. an affirmative wish to damage blacks as such. That criteria has been regularly met by harsher penalties for crack cocaine convictions compared to powder, with judges simply determining that lawmakers were pursuing a legitimate aim in seeking to curb drug consumption and that more severe sentencing for crack were logically connected to that goal. It has been difficult for victims of racial profiling to persuade judges that police actions constituted unlawful discrimination.
Conclusion
Blankenship, K. M., del Rio Gonzalez, A. M., Keene, D. E., Groves, A. K., & Rosenberg, A. P. (2018). Mass incarceration, race inequality, and health: expanding concepts and assessing impacts on well-being. Social Science & Medicine, 215, 45-52.
Daniels, C., Aluso, A., Burke-Shyne, N., Koram, K., Rajagopalan, S., Robinson, I., ... & Tandon, T. (2021). Decolonizing drug policy. Harm Reduction Journal, 18(1), 1-8.
Myers Jr, S. L., Sabol, W. J., & Xu, M. (2020). The determinants of declining racial disparities in female incarceration rates, 2000-2015. Review of Black Political Economy, 40(3), 231-244
Rosino, M. L., & Hughey, M. W. (2018). The war on drugs, racial meanings, and structural racism: A holistic and reproductive approach. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 77(3-4), 849-892.