In his book The New Jim Crow (Alexander, 2010), Michelle Alexander makes the claim that while overt discrimination based on race is no longer acceptable in society, discrimination against those convicted of crimes is still a thing. He notes that although the crime rate in America is about the same as that of other Western countries, the rate of incarceration has been constantly increasing, despite the fact that those domestic crime rates are below the international average. This explosive growth has been fueled by drug policy, the use of which has disproportionately decreased among people of color. As a result, there are more people of color incarcerated in the US than in South Africa during apartheid.
While others, such as criminologist Barry Latzer, have argued against Ms. Alexander’s opinion, it’s hard to argue that the War on Drugs™ affects all subgroups equally. Consider that, in 1985, before the passage of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, of the approximately 22,000 inmates incarcerated primarily for drug offenses, 39% were black and 38% white (Mitchell, 2009). By 2003, the number of incarcerated people had quintupled, and the incarcerated population was 53% black and 30% white. To put this issue even more deeply, in 1999, approximately 2% of the black population was incarcerated, with 1 in 10 black men between the ages of 20 and 30 in a state or federal prison (Bobo & Thompson, 2006). As Simon (2007) observed, with such a large number of young, black males incarcerated, prison plays a more important socializing role in affected communities than college, marriage, the military, and has the same social impact as the labor market.
It must be asked; What justifies this discrepancy? The difference in involvement will show that young people are arrested, convicted, and imprisoned more often because they commit more crimes. This is, in fact, the view of many policy makers, law enforcement officials, and the general public. However, it has been repeatedly shown that blacks and whites use and sell drugs at similar rates (Rosenberg, Grooves, & Blankenship, 2017). In addition, it has been shown that when looking at crimes that are not related to drugs, such as rape, robbery and assault, blacks and whites of the same socioeconomic status commit such crimes at the same rate (Harrell, Langton, Berzofsky, Couzens, & Smiley-McDonald, 2014). Therefore, differential involvement cannot explain why blacks are 57 times more likely to be arrested for drug related crimes than their white counterparts.
The answer lies within the objective of differential selection, where enforcement efforts are biased towards certain easily identifiable characteristics. As Mitchell and Caudy (2015) observed, blacks, and Hispanics (who also have higher rates of incarceration than whites), tend to congregate in low-income, inner-city areas where drug use is more visible and visible, such as the street. corners and “broken houses.” In contrast to the large, private transactions between participants in the wealthiest areas, transactions in these areas tend to be small, frequent, and between strangers with little, if any, integrity among themselves. Finally, with the abundance of small traders and small smugglers, these entrepreneurs naturally form gangs to protect their interests in the profits of the distribution areas, leading to street violence.
This makes targeting these areas a worthwhile activity for law enforcement. Working under the mandate to prevent both the supply and use of drugs, street sweeps, raids on drug houses, and other such measures allow policy makers and law enforcement officers to claim an increasing number of victories, without a relative decrease in supply or demand. Adding to the absurdity of this alternative choice is that the majority of blacks incarcerated are not convicted of trafficking or distribution, but are managed, despite the acknowledgment of the United States Sentencing Commission that the majority of users are white (Nunn, 2002) . All of this creates a self-perpetuating cycle of bias fueled by racial enforcement, which justifies existing ideas by creating and perpetuating a paradigm where it is right.
Under current federal and most state laws, most drug offenses – even possession of small amounts of illegal substances, are classified as felonies. This creates serious consequences for people convicted of these crimes. Those with bad records have been shown to earn significantly less in the labor market than others over their lifetimes, even those who were skilled workers before the conviction. This is not only due to the loss of wages while incarcerated, but also due to the stigma that private employers often attach to bad records, and the loss of social networks that inform their members of legitimate opportunities. People who have been convicted of crimes are generally not eligible for student loans to further their education, enlistment in the military, and other similar methods known to improve social and economic mobility. Perhaps most subtly, those convicted of drug crimes are disenfranchised, often unable to press their case to policymakers who have little incentive to address the concerns of those who can no longer vote. It is important to note that the above results are cumulative for each prisoner. Families and communities are also affected, often leading to intergenerational cycles of declining socioeconomic mobility and high crime (Gust, 2012), (Foster & Hagan, 2009); a topic that will not be extended here because it needs its own treatment.
Tarnell Brown is an Atlanta-based economist and public policy analyst.
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