Just the Facts: It's a Locking-People-Up Problem

I think whoever researched the graph for drug prison sentences make a radical oversight on the data. Now, if all those users are under the same charges I can understand how it comes out, but the fact that it just says "drug users" makes me think otherwise.

The white drug users that account for 70% of users seem to me to just be your average white american teenager who will light up the occasional joint. If he/she gets caught with possession its just a minor charge and at worst some time in county prison.

Now to get a state prison sentence the person is probably dealing. In ghettos of major cities that is the only real choice for a good lifestyle is to deal. Since most ghettos do have a strong african-american population, that is why the majority is such.

Federal prison sentences are usually those smuggling the drugs into the country. Most drugs come from Central America, which means Hispanics are bringing them in, so no wonder they own the majority of the population.

Actually, simple possession charges (drugs found for personal use vs sale) can carry up to 3 years in prison in California. Other states are likely the same in terms of funneling non-violent people into prisons at great petsonal and social expense.

I have to strongly disagree with your comments about racial differences in drug users. Media, as it has always done, has succeeded in painting a negative portrayal of African Americans and now Latinos. I love that in your comment, you admit to thinking that a white person getting caught with possession of marijuana should just get a minor charge...but the problem is that for African Americans and Latinos, that same possession could mean years in prison. Your ignorance also comes through in your statements about "ghettos". Are you implying that only African Americans live in ghettos and all we do is use and sell drugs there?!?!? WRONG!!!!! If you're in to comedy, I think it was Chris Rock who said white people have "the complexion for the protection". If you look at some of the more dangerous drugs (drugs that have worse effects than Marijuana) such as methamphetamine, ecstasy, prescription pills, etc. I'm sure you would find that a majority of the users and sellers are NOT African American or Latino. A big part of our injustice system is that White people are more frequently offered counseling instead of jail time, more frequently have their "parents money" to pay for
good lawyers, bail, fines etc. The problem is that whites are not targeted, so if you have 3 groups of people, all smoking marijuana in the city (I'm using this example since that is the reference you made in your comment about being a minor charge) who is going to get in the most trouble? The group of Blacks, Whites or Latinos? And why should we even have to consider it...the answer should be simple they should all be arrested and charged exactly the same for the exact same crime...instead of judging people as coming from the ghetto, being dealers, smugglers, and assuming one racial group is more of a threat than another.

True, true, true. All true.

Yup, Maria is right and the article is right. I'm white and have a kid in the system. When I go to see him, I'm by far the minority. Look up a site like www.drugwarfacts.org, www.leap.cc, http://actionamerica.org/drugs/wodclock.shtml or better yet watch American Dug War http://video.google.com/vid[…]?docid=-5840435469342539103 There is also a fairly new book out called the New Jim Crow, which helps explain what the hell is really going on, that in the supposedly safest country in the world - USA - and with 5% of the world's population, we have 25% of the world's incarcerated. What can that possibly be about except huge profits at the expense for the poor who cannot afford to be represented with good legal counsel? The War on Drugs is a massive profit scheme of privatized profiteering prisons with a drag net to put as many poor people - many times minorities - in the system to the point they are labeled felons and lose there Constitutional rights given to every American, like voting. educational assistance and being able to protect themselves by owning firearms, even though living where poverty forces them to live, they really need that protection. Most poor are not gang-member thugs, be we certainly encourage that through keeping them down - so we have even more incarceration. It's the ploy of the Rich White to control power.

  There's more to it than that. Certain laws are written to reduce unfavorable human activities such as reckless driving, drug use, etc.

The purpose of the law is to reduce these activities. If under the guise of combating these activities we specifically target one group that due to some accident of history is in a different position in the unfavorable action we in effect have an unfair law.

assuming we did wish to reduce drug consumption increased fines and incarceration rates on offenders would also decrease total use. Yet laws specific target the seller of drugs rather than the purchaser. Which, for unfortunate historical reasons, tends to mean the individuals from poor back grounds willing to take on the potential risk of dealing are targeted rather than the consumers that make the market exist in the first place.

Unfortunately, I don't doubt that there is an unfair discrepancy in sentencing based on race. However, I would like to know a bit more about the data to determine if apples are being compared to apples. In particular, how was the "drug users" group created? Is this based on people arrested for drug possession or estimated drug usage by race? Type and amount of drugs are also used in sentencing - this needs to be accounted for in the data. Also, what is the time frame for the data, or did I miss that?

The data compiled is for overall drug users, regardless of drug charges. If you compare the data above with overall population rates, what you will see is that basically the same percentage of whites as compared to any other race use drugs. So drug use is exactly the same across racial lines. What is NOT equal across racial lines are drug charges and convictions. So while the same percentage of whites and Blacks are "lighting up the occasional joint," Blacks are being convicted and sentenced at exponential rates and for exponential amounts of times as whites. And just to be clear, I am white, I just happen to be educated.

Number of drug users doesn't have anything to do with people in prison. The people in prison should be drug dealers right?

The number of drug users by race being so drastically different from the number of people imprisoned for drugs has a lot to do with the fact that, all other factors being equal (prior offenses, amount found on their person, demeanor during the stop), the Black person is twice as likely to be arrested than the White person.

Do you live in a place where possession isn't a crime?

That's my idea of what would be right, too. But unfortunately, as these articles reveal, way too many people are being imprisoned for being users--addicts. As if jail ever cured an addiction or stopped people from making poor choices (generally due to lack of good choices). Sad and wrong!
Thanks for the insightful and revealing articles on this, friends at Yes!

"...way too many people are being imprisoned for being users--addicts." One may want to consider here, an estimated 40 MILLION people use illicit drugs on an annual basis. Only about 2% are addicts - the rest are responsible, working people that enjoy doing a line or smoking a joint once in a while - they too, easily get caught up in the system. The "Drug Laws" are beyond stupid. Drug addicts need rehabilitation or harm reduction programs THAT WORK - currently, that's rarely the case. The programs aren't long enough, aren't regulated - any one can open a drug rehab with absolutely no qualifications and exploit the family trying to save a loved one. Lastly, overall drug courts and rehabs are primarily addressing the symptom or behavior - drug use - rather than addressing the underlying cause of using. In any case, prison doesn't begin to address these issues. Meanwhile recreational users are forced into programs, taking time, money and the stigma of being a felon for the rest of their lives when they don't have a problem to begin with. Even with addicts, many are arrested ONLY for possession of personal use amounts - that is the crime. In my mind a crime requires a victim. Who is the victim here? The user? So the law is "protecting" the user from himself via prison? He's still there - for that matter, so are drugs. Some protection. Drugs are very available in prison and though I agree drug use is harmful, so is attempting suicide. When was the last time you heard of someone going to prison for that?

Seems like a lot of commenters think drug use is perfectly okay (since white people do it) and drug dealing is deserving of a prison sentence (since that's what they think black people do).

The point is, drugs are not a problem. It's just an issue that has been manipulated to pump up fear in white voters. The drug war is the new slavery. It is just as immoral to put millions of black men in cages over a puritanical law that doesn't benefit society in any way.

Besides the fact that anyone with internet access and a spreadsheet could produce these graphs (which I think might already be available through the DOJ), what am I supposed to be concluding all on my own because writing a paragraph seems to be too much work?

Congratulations to the 4th graders that spent the twenty minutes posting this.

Jess, as to the 4th graders that created the graphs, if you had read thoroughly, you would have seen in the "source" information at the end of the piece that those 4th graders are from the U.S. Census Bureau, Gallup, the Bureau of Justice, and King's College London International Centre for Prison Studies. Happy reading!

I read the fine print. As I said the first time, an article is about doing the work to put data in context and possibly draw a conclusion. Those skills, however, are not required until fifth grade.

I personally don't mind that the authors have kept their comments brief.

The data itself is noteworthy, somewhat surprising, and is a great starting point for further consideration and conversation. American imprisonment is clearly a huge problem!

It's too bad the article doesn't have a racial breakdown of drug sellers. If anyone can find such data, it would be a great next step.

You do not go to prison for using drugs unless you have a long criminal record. 99% of the people who go to jail for using drugs were SELLING drugs and were allowed to plead to a lessor crime. So to claim that poor innocent people usingf drugs recreationally are being impriosoned is a flat out lie. Worse, there is no way that you would not know this fact if you did any research at all. So you have used this misrepresented data to misrtepresent your entire position. Personally I would prefer that drug pushers were shot on sight. Drugs destroy lives. Young children, especially young girls have their lives destroyed by these bastards.

Baloney - very appropriate title, since I would imagine Baloney is not very well informed. See my first post - many likes for you to get the truth. What are you researching your Big Pharma Stock Portfolio?

You better start lining up doctors and CEO's buddy. Between the use of adderall and vyvanse as a weight loss aid in teenage girls and Xanax as a party pill (especially when mixed with alcohol), you've got a ton of bullets to buy and a lot of graves to dig. You'll find more drug abusers waiting in your local doctors office or your kids cafeteria than you will on the streets. ^.^ good luck getting stitches the next time you need them though, with all those dead doctors I doubt many more college kids are going to sign up for med school.

It's all starts with honesty, folks. For example, as a recovering dope fiend and ex-convict, I can assure that people in prison are NOT innocent victims. We were there because we put ourselves there, and after getting out we had a choice to straighten ourselves out or go back. Entirely too many are going back because they're flat out afraid to try and do things a new way, would rather go back to the old ways because it's what they know. Many in prison do scream they are victims, and despite being in there myself, I was even called "white devil" on occasion. If you want to argue that the government needs to be doing more about the socio-economic factors that lead to crime, you'd be right. But we all have a choice, and for those of you have never committed a felony, you've chosen wisely. Look, folks, we all agree racism is a bad thing, or at least I hope we do, but misusing the terminology is only setting it back, rather than moving race relations forward.

Self Delusion, though I appreciate your honesty and owning up to your own stuff, I'm assuming you actually did commit a crime, and if so, likely because of drugs. I doubt anyone thinks NOBODY should be in prison - far from it. There are definitely some bad guys out there and if you committed a crime - you need to be punished, I guess. The argument here is mass incarceration JUST for use - no other crime. BUT... I will also say, based on recidivism rates, I don't believe incarceration is the answer even if there was a crime, if it was non-violent. Stealing a laptop or breaking into a car to buy drugs isn't right, but come on - prison? There are almost no options for getting help for addiction unless you have money, so you stay on drugs and do what you do for the same reason - no money. The waiting times for "free rehab" are months long and not long enough if you finally do get into one and when an addict doesn't have the means to get help or at least get away from the source, it's a very tough battle. If we spent the kind of money on education and rehabilitation that is being spent on "The Drug War" - 15 BILLION DOLLARS in 2010 - and that's just on the Drug War - not incarceration, parole, probation, drug court, rehab, welfare for the children left behind while the parent is incarcerated and don't forget funerals - the highest rate of overdose is the first hours to weeks AFTER release from the institution of your choice. I'm glad you made it, but that unfortunately isn't constituting a success story for many others. Beyond that, if you have been in prison, you cannot deny the extremely higher rate of minority incarceration.

Well, regarding your example of the laptop, etc. That's why you get probation the first time you commit a felony, then when you do it again, they start getting tougher on you. Believe me, it's not a pleasant thing for me to admit that the system is more or less fair having been through it.

To their credit, the states have been pushing people towards rehab, and did in my case, otherwise I'd not be here talking about it. Still a majority of people in rehab fail, though nobody fails who wants it bad enough. People fail because they're afraid to make changes in their lives. Then again, if it was easy to get rid of we wouldn't call it addiction, we'd call it an annoyance.

As for the minorities, of course. The inner city is where the bulk of the criminal acts are committed because it's where civilization has failed the most. It can't be emphasized enough that it's not a statement about any particular race or ethnic group, but on living conditions. Crime is entirely too logical a choice for those living in true squalor and where there is no job market. When I lived in Illinois I met many people who had to commute all the way from the South side of Chicago out to the western suburbs for jobs, which is at least an hour and half commute each way.

This is not a failure of the correction system though, it is simply Americans either being too selfish or not understanding the need to be concerned about the welfare of all citizens. People don't take this stuff seriously until it affects them directly, and then they cry foul. This problem you guys are trying to address is much bigger than the incarceration rate. You're going to have to address the social problems directly that lead to crime if you're going to have a serious conversation about this.

The jail system is a bureaucracy like any other. It's self-perpetuating, which means it tries to outlast the situation that gave birth to its existence in the first place.

 Your only real question in regards to this, should be "were there any violent actions or imminent dangers associated with their arrest?"
To be quite frank, it's none of our business if an independent adult consumes a drug. If they aren't under an influence while watching a child, at work or under the age of independence, than it is their own business.

The fact of the matter is this. If there is no victim, there is no crime. If you are strongly opposed to drug usage, instill this ideal in your children and hope they continue to follow your path, just as with most everything else you teach them in life.


As to ghetto's and races. If you happen to assume that being of a certain race makes you a poor, a dealer or a smuggler. You're being prejudiced. You should step back and really re-think your life choices. It could just as easily be flipped that being white should carry the assumption that you're a rich, racist with an superiority complex.

Seeing as neither scenario is always correct but just as likely to be associated with the other "race", stop prescribing to what you see in the media and accept that individuals should be judged on their choices not their circumstances.

As to experience. In the question of prescription medication abuse. I've known far more whites than any ethnic groups combined, to abuse pills and syrups. In every case there will be far more risk than with marijuana. Most of it will just be about on par with if not have a little more risk than "street" drugs.

That's just my experience though, some may have slightly different experiences. You should always take into account this matter though "How many people do you really know in different "racial" groups, how well do you know them and how fair is your assumption". Waving "Hello" to the black guy in your office isn't a friendship, you don't really know anything about their lives. Talking to your doctor about your pain doesn't give you any in depth information on what he does in his free time. I know people with PHD's that smoke marijuana. I didn't find out until after years of friendship. What you know and what you think you know, are entirely different things.