The war on drugs and its negative impacts

¶ … war on drugs and its negative impact and the social impact the war on drugs has on society. We will look at how much money is being spent to fight the war on drugs, how the police force and criminal justice system are overburdened with drug offenders arresting, how this is taking away from the police fighting other crimes in society, how many individuals are in jail on drugs, and how a drug conviction can be a life sentence for an individual in the loss of financial aid, welfare and housing benefits from the federal government.

The number of all prisoners incarcerated on drug-related offenses rose some 15-fold between 1980 and

This also caused cocaine prices to increase 5 -- 15% higher as a consequence of increases in drug punishment since 1985. The impact of increased drug incarceration has only been a small (1 -- 3%)

reduction in violent and property crime, almost statistically nil. Estimates suggest that it is unlikely that the dramatic increase in drug imprisonment was cost-effective (Kuziemko & Levitt, 2004, 2043).

How many are actually incarcerated? About 480,000

people are incarcerated for drug-law violations, a massive increase since 1985 through the year 2006. This represents that full-time sellers might expect to serve 3 months incarcerated per year of selling. This suggests that there are four active drug sellers for every one person incarcerated. (Caulkins and Chandler, 2006, 619).

The vast majority of drug inmates are Black or other people of color as they compose 60% of the incarcerated population. Blacks have constituted some 62.6% of all drug offenders in state prisons. Nationwide in America, the rate of persons admitted to prison on drug charges for Black men was 13 times that for White men and in 10 states, the rates are 26 to 57 times those for White men. People of color are not more likely to do drugs and Black men do not have an abnormal predilection for intoxication and for illicit drugs. They are simply more likely to be arrested and prosecuted for their use. The war on drugs removes a person from their family and children lose contact with parents and caregivers. The community also loses vital members who otherwise would be contributing to it (Moore, and Elkavich 782). Just by eliminating nonviolent offenders from the prison population could total prison costs of 16.9 billion dollars as of 2010 (Schmitt, Warner, and Gupta 13).

This has also had tragic impacts upon the health of injection drug users. This includes the disruption of the provision of health care to injection drug users (IDU) and increasing risk behaviors associated with infectious disease transmission and overdose (Kerr, Small, and Wood 210). Certainly, it makes sense to treat drug addicts out of jail where it will be more effective. Substance abuse education and awareness has become the most prevalent form of service provided in jails, being offered in 74% of prisons, 61% of jails, and 53% of community correctional agencies. The previous figure is as opposed to remedial education (89%) and jails (59.5%), sex offender therapy (57.2%) and intensive supervision (41.9%)