The “War” on Drugs

Printer friendly version

The so-called “War on Drugs” has made poor people, people of color, women, youth, and undocumented immigrants the primary targets of the U.S. government and its criminal justice system.

THE PRISON-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

Victims: Almost two million people are currently locked up in U.S. prisons and jails, giving the US the highest ratio of prisoners per population in the world. More than 70 percent of the imprisoned population are people of color. Two-thirds of all people entering prison are sentenced for non-violent offenses. Although African Americans make up only 12% of the U.S. population and 13% of its drug users, they comprise one third of all drug-related arrests and nearly two thirds of all convictions. On any given day in the U.S., more than one out of every three Black males between the ages of 18-29 are either incarcerated, on probation, on parole or under warrant for arrest. For Latinos the figure is one in six. For whites, it is one in twenty.

Profits: Roughly $7 billion a year was spent nationally over the past decade building prisons. The prison industry generates an estimated $40 billion a year, with private corporations receiving an increasing amount of taxpayer money to run private prisons and provide services. Privately owned prisons possess a notorious reputation for their abusive guards, sub-standard living conditions, and inmate escapes.

Profiteers: Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) is the largest private prison corporation in the world. AT&T, Sprint, and MCI charge inmates and their families as much as 6 times the normal cost of a longdistance call within the U.S. Chevron, TWA, and Victoria’s Secret use prison labor to do data entry, book telephone reservations, and make lingerie at 23 cents an hour. UNICOR, the federal prison industry corporation, uses inmates to make recycled furniture at $40 a month for a 40- hour work week.

AND THE POLITICS

Ultimately, the U.S. government’s domestic war on drugs can be viewed as a method of social control over the American poor and people of color. More than 1.4 million Black men are currently ineligible to vote, as some states discriminate against those who have been convicted for a felony, by permanently denying them the right to vote. Those who are under criminal justice “supervision” do not have to be included in unemployment statistics. As a result, social problems such as homelessness, unemployment, drug addiction, mental illness, and illiteracy are among those problems that disappear from public view and societal response.

So we demand:

• End the drug war’s assault on people of color and the poor
• The money used for building new prisons could be used for good alternative approaches.

For more information visit www.lasolidarity.org, write to LASC@afgj.org or call 202-544-9355.