Reports: Blacks Suffer Persistent Injustice in Drug War

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42264

RIGHTS-US: Blacks Suffer Persistent Injustice in Drug War
By Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, May 6 (IPS) - African Americans have suffered much higher rates of arrests and imprisonment than whites in the nearly 30-year-old U.S. "war on drugs", according to two reports released here this week.

While white citizens constitute the large majority of convicted drug offenders, African American communities have been the principal "fronts" in the war, according to "Targeting Blacks: Drug Law Enforcement and Race in the United States", by New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW).

Among other conclusions, the 67-page report found that African Americans constituted 53.5 percent of all individuals who were sentenced to prison for violating drug laws between the war's launch in 1980 and 2003, the most recent year for which statistics are available.

Across 34 states covered by the HRW report, a black man was found to be nearly 12 times more likely than a white man to be sentenced to prison for drug offences. A black woman is nearly five times more likely to go to prison than a white woman.

In a separate study of data from 43 of the largest U.S. cities, the Sentencing Project found that the rate of drug arrests for African Americans increased by 225 percent, compared to 70 percent among whites over the same 23-year period, despite the absence of any statistical evidence that the rate of drug use in each community had changed.

In 11 cities, the 45-page study, "Disparity by Geography: The War on Drugs in America's Cities", found that black arrest rates grew by more than 500 percent over the period.

"Urban black Americans have borne the brunt of the war on drugs," said Michael Tonry, a professor of criminal law at the University of Minnesota associated with the Sentencing Project. "They have been arrested, prosecuted, convicted, and imprisoned at increasing rates since the early 1980s, and grossly out of proportion to their numbers in the general population or among drug users."

"By every standard, the war has been harder on blacks than on whites," he added.

"Most drug offenders are white, but most of the drug offenders sent to prison are black," noted Jamie Fellner, author of the HRW report and a senior counsel of the group's U.S. programme. "The solution is not to imprison more whites but to radically rethink how to deal with drug abuse and low-level drug offenders."
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What a stupid study.

the silence speaks volumes!

Sorry, Cosby has nothing to do with this.

:kick:

absolutely DISGUSTING

a word about it. Anti-drug laws in this country, from the very beginning (early 20th century), had a heavy component of racial fear-mongering, and pious rhetoric about the evils of drugs (not unique to Republicans by any means) provides a convenient excuse to put millions of working-class, disproportionately black, young men behind bars.

Bet you anything Cosby himself supports this bullshit "war," and is in serious denial about its racist aspects.

History Channel's mini-series "Hooked: Illegal Drugs And How They Got That Way" well documents the racist reasoning behind most drug laws.

countries, like Canada, England, Australia, and so on? I'm not at all trying to suggest that if they are equally biased/racist that it makes it okay here, it isn't. Its disgusting and a huge embarrassment. By incarcerating so many blacks, we have stepped even lower than slavery.

so the Cosby-loving bigots and closet racists can read some actual facts, not anecdotal recycled racist bullshit--that's okay because Cosby said it. :grr:

:kick:

I won't let this dive to the bottom while the damned bigots and closet racists praise Cosby. Here are some actual facts, and Cosby can't absolve them and an obviously racist social caste system.

The signs of segregation came off of the doors of America, but not the hearts of America. :(

because too many people think that black people have no problems.

:shrug:

No surprise there..

Maybe this is some of what the Rev. Wright had on his mind, huh?

This shit breeds massive disrespect for the criminal justice system--as it should.

Everyone suffers under its injustice. It's nothing but a money-generator for the law-enforcement industry.

And the private prison contractors.

This insane drug war has to end! It's Jim Crow by other means. It's destroying lives, families and communities.

And it isn't helping people who need help. My cousin recently died of a heroin overdose. He'd been to court for possession, but they couldn't help him with rehab because he wasn't absolutely destitute. And he definitely couldn't afford it on his own with his job at Burger King. So they made him pay fines and took away his driver's license. A lot of good that did.

Instead of fines or prison time, we need rehabilitation for anyone who needs it, free of charge.(Prison is free of charge.)

And pot needs to be legalized.

:kick:

sigh.

Not that they mind if some poor whites get swept up as well...

But make no mistakes about it. The war on drugs was founded in racism.