Yo!
This is Civic Issues #3 and we’re getting deeper into the mess of the Criminal Justice system. This post may get a little political, so bear with me.
Today I want to look at the political movement that indisputably had the LARGEST impact on the surge in mass incarceration through the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, and even early 2000’s. This movement is called the War on Drugs and was initiated by Richard Nixon in 1971. You’ve likely heard about the War on Drugs and know some of its policies from American History classes, but you probably weren’t taught about the disproportionate effects that these policies had on communities of color, specifically Black people, as these drugs were more heavily monitored in those communities.
For example, “Crack” cocaine received harsher penalties than its powdered counterpart, with an established 100:1 quantity ratio. This meant that someone possessing 5 grams of crack cocaine would get the same 5-year minimum sentence as someone with up to 500 grams of powder cocaine. This distinguished Black sentencing from Whites, as crack was far more common in Black communities despite White communities using the same drug at similar rates, just in a “classier” powdered form (ACLU). This disparity is just one of many that were responsible for the disproportionate representation of people of color in the criminal justice system.
Before we get into the nitty gritty, I should explain the rhetoric used to promote the War on Drugs in its genesis and how it was used to get the people’s support. At a press conference in 1971, Nixon identified drug abuse as “public enemy number one in the United States” and later established the Federal department now known as the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). The movement took a while to actually become a significant component of law enforcement efforts, but it was greatly strengthened in 1981 when Ronald Reagan became president. Reagan greatly expanded the reach of the drug war and his focus on criminal punishment over treatment led to a massive increase in incarcerations for nonviolent drug offenses, from 50,000 in 1980 to 400,000 in 1997 (AEI). The graph below shows the incarceration rates of various offenses over the years. As you can see, drug offenses, which used to be one of the least frequent charges in the country, is now the most common by almost twice that of anything else.
A few years into Ronald’s presidency, Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign bolstered public opinion on the War on Drugs even more. The expansion of the War on Drugs was also driven by increased media coverage of the crack epidemic and the activities of law enforcement. As we know, this epidemic was largely focused in Black and brown communities, and thus these minorities being shown paraded across the screen in handcuffs emboldened stereotypes and biases.
How do we know that the war on drugs was a targeted attack on people of color? There is concrete evidence that comes from two sources, John Ehrlichman, Nixon’s domestic-policy adviser, and Lee Atwater, the deputy director of Reagan’s re-election campaign. Ehrlichman disclosed freely in 1994 Nixon’s true motives for the War on Drugs in an interview with reporter Dan Baum. He stated that the Nixon administration: “had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people.” He goes on to admit: “Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.” If Ehrlichman’s intentional confession wasn’t enough, Lee Atwater’s leaked 1981 interview about the “Southern Strategy” reveals more. Atwater discloses that anti-black politicians had to get more “abstract” with their rhetoric when addressing their efforts to oppress. You can listen to the full interview in the TheNation link below, but overall, we can see that the 1970-2010 surge in American incarceration is directly tied to the War on Drugs which was, among other things, an effective attack on the socioeconomic status of people of color.
This is a very nuanced topic that goes much deeper than the space I’m allotted in a blog post, but I hope this expanded your understanding of how the drug war drastically increased the amount of people in the criminal justice system and how that has disproportionately affected people of color for decades.
Thanks for reading and as always, stay curious!
~Asim
Links:
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/exclusive-lee-atwaters-infamous-1981-interview-southern-strategy/
https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/the-shocking-and-sickening-story-behind-nixons-war-on-drugs-that-targeted-blacks-and-anti-war-activists/
Cracks in the System: 20 Years of the Unjust Federal Crack Cocaine Law
Regean’s presidency and the War on Drugs was a topic that I’m really passionate about, so it’s nice to read about it again and be reminded of how subtle racism can be. I think one big takeaway from the 80’s and 90’s is that it isn’t difficult to get someone to support a policy with racist undertones, as long as the message is spread in a roundabout way. The War on Drugs also reminds me of the term “superpredators” that was used in 90s news and up-and-coming crime-busting shows. The term refers to a small group of youth in the US population that were extremely violent, but when most people used the term they were referring to black teens.
I’ve watched many videos on “The War on Drugs” and how it was basically just an excuse to imprison more black people. It’s kind of crazy how something that seems good on the surface can have such bad intentions. I have to wonder if Nixon was aware of the effects that it would have. My guess would probably say yes but I’m not super familiar with everything that was happening in this time period.
This post is super interesting! I am very uneducated in anything related to history, so I had no idea about any of this until reading this post. I think you did a great job explaining it, especially for someone like me with very little background on the topic!