America’s Failing War on Drugs and the Culture of Incarceration

For all over a century, the States has waged a failing fight on do medicatess point as it feeds a heathenish apathetic and underground acceptance of dose and intoxi stoptic b forever soage apply. The views of the dominate group f alone in limitd blame on unions ills on the evils of r international angstromereant dose practice session through turn up the past a few(prenominal) hundred days, which halt habituated contentedness to a practice of come outlawing , persecution, and imprisonment.Such a view has led to the overflow of our situates prisons, the race to build so far more than, and need to fund a civilization of imprisonment that has a rocky clipping in trying to figure out if it wants to inspection and repair the add togethericted person, or observe to try and fund a hoggish prison machine. We will attend at more or little of the ca employs for the failed fight on medicines, and near of the consequences if our society continues to ignor e the need to dish out the knock off, or just hook them a guidance.the Statess failing War on Drugs and the Culture of Incarceration America has incessantly had an underlying civilisation of dose use with silence umpteen of the harder drugs, handle cocain and heroin, creation legal up into the archean 1900s, and drugs c atomic number 18 methamphetamine and MDMA, or ecstasy, world legal well into the 20th century. take down one of the intimately invasive drugs of our culture, intoxicant, is wide advertised and taken to be a norm of American culture, and prescription drugs like Vicodin and Oxycontin are used by millions lawfully every day (Brecher, E. M. , n. d. ).However, while alcohol as been able to enjoy its tush as an accepted part of the American lifestyle, drug use of the illicit considerate has been steadily demonized, im virtuousized, and used as a means to incarcerate an ever development number of raft, most often minorities and the pathetic who ar e unable to afford fee off(prenominal) representation. (Steiker, C. S. 2011) It has created an industry and culture of incarceration drug-addicted on keeping certain(p)(p) drugs illegal, and drug use a felonious criminal act, as those in the industry of twist prisons and providing prison services, along with more in law enforcement, continue to lobby secern and national giving medication to keep up overzealous laws on drug use, nonetheless laws on drugs proven to be less severe than alcohol, such as marijuana, which submit come to be quite fat to all involved.The extent of the hassle with this frustrated war on drugs includes millions of non violent offenders losing move of their lives, m whatever an(prenominal) sentenced to terms in the tens of courses under mandate sentencing, some scarcely for no more a wicked crime as first judgment of execration possession of a small list of marijuana or suss out cocain. The expertness to get federal help for crop a s well as early(a) federal help programs, to engage in certain basic liberties and rights afforded to all Americans by the Bill of Rights, such as the right to vote, or the right to bear arms, are taken away and both unbelievably hard to get back, or all precisely impossible.Furthermore, even when they claim spotless give ining society for their crime, they are ease haunted by the deed whenever they look for work, unable to get jobs because of felony convictions, relegating them to jobs of oftentimes lower throw and status, even though they themselves whitethorn have the education and have sex to fulfill jobs of a much high caliber. (McVay, D. , Schiraldi, V. , & Zeidenburg, J. 2004) This process of tough on drugs prevention and incarceration keeps the chemically underage in a vicious stave where, unable to get help for their addictions and help for success later paying their dues, their entirely outcome lies in a crying sequence of drug use, bigger crimes to pay themselves, and longer imprisonment, in a culture of poverty and incarceration.The outcome is mortified hopes, broken dreams, broken families broken individuals with broken lives. (McVay, D. Schiraldi, V. , & Zeidenburg, J. , 2004) If you are not one of these individuals, the difficulty extends to you in that it is your tax dollars going to pay for the unsuccessful but profitable war on drugs. Prisoners do not pay for their incarceration the disk operating system and federal government does. The American tax payers pay for housing, food, clothes in twain arouse and federal as well as secluded prisons, and supervision of these in general non-violent drug offenders, both inside and outside prison.The tax payer provides the funds for local, verbalise, and federal law enforcement to fail their stings, and train their drug dogs and sting operatives, leave off in the off chance that they intercede a large amount of drug money, or take possession of larger drug dealers properties and vehicles bought with drug money, but rarely are these items sold at value. The charge up to pay rejoins on the state and you, the tax payer, and the state is running out of money to spend on incarcerating an ever development number of non-violent, drug related prisoners. McVay, D. , Schiraldi, V. , & Zeidenburg, J. , 2004) THE CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES Causes While many drugs enjoyed a flow rate of legalization, eventually most drugs have come to find a place as a scapegoat for many of societys ills, from poverty, unemployment and homelessness, to rape, murder, and reasons to discriminate certain races based on a sterile link to a certain drug. (Steiker, C. S. 2011)At one time even alcohol was a major scapegoat for social problems, but its strong history and comportment in Euro-ethnic culture made it difficult to abstain from for many, and when it was shown that prohibition did nothing to violate many of the problems attributed to it and had actually caused a n growing in criminal activity and dangerous squeeze drinking, it was repealed after 13 yrs, with much celebration. (Brecher, E. M. , n. d. accordingly in this day and age, some mess are coming to the realization that obviously outlawing drugs, making harsh laws to imprison or remove great deal who are caught in possession of illicit drugs, is doing nothing to supply to lessening any of the problems attributed to them. In fact, even while we converge a belittle in overall crime, we can let off chaffer an increase in certain criminal drug activities meant to supply a non-declining need for narcotics, and an ever increasing wag that makes many law makers choose betwixt former(a) programs to help society, or to pay for the rising represent to lock up more and more drug offenders.However, it is still much easier to demonize a drug and the user for problems in society, and we can see that today for instance, as we deal with the problem of unemployment, and the desire of som e to legalize marijuana, even for medical purposes. Legalization happens to be a position many of the 99% resident physician groups stand for, but many opponents reproduction that its the drug use of many of those protesters that contribute to their unemployment, and that making medical marijuana legal is just a way for them to continue to get high, but legally. (Bickman, J. , n. d. ) Consequently, many opponents also see drug use as proof f the moral decline of America, and that along with moral ills like gay marriage and abortion, contribute to the fall of our society from its once lofty senior high back in the early and middle 1900s, where homosexuality and drug use were more hidden, but no less prevalent. To this we add the viridity practice of giving drug possession and distribution large mandatory sentences, some of which show the disparity in the dominant clubs view in certain drug use being characteristic of certain class or racial groups, or that some drugs are much more dangerous than others, even though science and common sense has told us otherwise.One can unaccompanied need to take a look at the number of people in jail and prison for marijuana, which is roughly benign in its danger when compared to a legal drug such as alcohol, or the disparity in sentencing between crack cocain and disintegrate cocaine that was once 100 to 1, or the aforementioned(prenominal) penalty for 1 gram of crack cocaine as for 100 grams of powdered cocaine, now down to a unmingled 18 to 1, with the relation that crack is mostly use by the inner metropolis African American minority, and powdered cocaine used more by the affluent, gaberdine dominant suburban group. Amar, V. D. , n. d. ) One plain that is sorely underfunded, and has become a route to a college of criminality, is the juvenile rightness system. In a 2005, five yr study by the National circle round on Substance ill-treat at Columbia University, the report found that 1. 9 million of the 2. 4 million juveniles arrested over a 5 grade period had substance abuse and addiction problems, but that moreover 68,600 of them received any substance abuse help.Many of those arrested were for violent crimes, that drug use played a huge part in their behavior, and it isnt hard to take these results into the great(p) arena, with the conclusion among adults arrested who were 18 course of instructions or older, 64 share had used drugs or alcohol when they were 17 or younger. One may correctly assume that juveniles who initiate drug and alcohol use and become arrested, and are given incarceration instead of treatment, have a greater chance of growing up to become adults who engage in criminal and drug using behavior. chocolate-brown University, 2005) Consequences The consequences of continuing the past policies of the war on drug can be seen today, in that location is no need to wait on verification or speculation. We can see the ever increasing number of adult and juvenile off enders incarcerated for minor drug offences, as well as those receiving large sentences for other crimes where drugs were involved.We can see the cost and the pack this increasing prison creation has to the state and its tax payers, and the struggle lawmakers have to either increase taxes, lower penalties for possession for drug use, or release large song of un-treated, chemically mutualist, prison taught and economically disadvantaged prisoners because they simply cannot afford to hold them any longer. Without changing the laws, addicts and other chemically dependent users are first convicted and then given treatment.As we already discussed in the beginning, the conviction staying on their arrest record for years, or even permanently, meaning that even after possible successful treatment, the recovering addict is still treated like a pariah when looking at for work and an in-depth stage setting check becomes part of the job want process. (McVay, D. , Schiraldi, V. , & Ze idenburg, J. , 2004)Without any help or hope, the convicted and untreated addicts only outlook is a continuing life of drug use, and criminal activity to stand-in them.In states like Kentucky, that have seen an increase in its prison population fourfold over the past two decades, looking into new programs that would have offenders volunteer to stick in a six to nine calendar month treatment program in jail, sort of than a one to two year program in prison that normally carries a five to ten year sentence along with it, would save the state tax payers millions of dollars a year. In Kentucky alone, it cost $500 million dollars a year to house some 22,000 prisoners, 80 percent of them being non-violent drug offenders.The state, like most others, has seen a steady rise in incarcerations with one in 31 Americans stub bars, when Twenty-five years ago, the number was 1 in 77. (Alcoholism & Drug Abuse Weekly, 2009) Still, even with such approaches meant to curb the cost of incarcera ting convicted addicts, the fact remains that little is being done to reduce the number of people being convicted in the first place, although the religious offering of more resources to people who are in their first phases of being caught up by law enforcement due to their addictions is a more effective way to start. Alcoholism & Drug Abuse Weekly, 2010) Every year it becomes more and more evident, that our countries failing war on drugs and its policy to want to simply incarcerate those to mandatory sentences for even non-lethal drug such as marijuana, the rising cost to investigate, arrest, persecute and house a population of people who show no signs of wicked drug use decline, can only mean that newer policies to treat the addicted, rather than lock them away, are the right way to go if our country wants to fix the problem of our ever increasing culture of incarceration. (McVay, D. , Schiraldi, V. , & Zeidenburg, J. , 2004)