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    DPA Fact Sheet Drug War Mass Incarceration and Race Jan2015 PDF

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    The United States imprisons more people than any other nation, largely due to the war on drugs and misguided drug laws. Although drug use rates are similar across races, people of color are far more likely to be arrested, prosecuted, and imprisoned for drug offenses. Mandatory minimum sentencing has contributed to racial disparities and the mass incarceration of over 500,000 Americans for non-violent drug law violations at a given time.

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    DPA Fact Sheet Drug War Mass Incarceration and Race Jan2015 PDF

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    The United States imprisons more people than any other nation, largely due to the war on drugs and misguided drug laws. Although drug use rates are similar across races, people of color are far more likely to be arrested, prosecuted, and imprisoned for drug offenses. Mandatory minimum sentencing has contributed to racial disparities and the mass incarceration of over 500,000 Americans for non-violent drug law violations at a given time.

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    The United States imprisons more people than any other nation, largely due to the war on drugs and misguided drug laws. Although drug use rates are similar across races, people of color are far more likely to be arrested, prosecuted, and imprisoned for drug offenses. Mandatory minimum sentencing has contributed to racial disparities and the mass incarceration of over 500,000 Americans for non-violent drug law violations at a given time.

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    DPA Fact Sheet Drug War Mass Incarceration and Race Jan2015 PDF

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    The United States imprisons more people than any other nation, largely due to the war on drugs and misguided drug laws. Although drug use rates are similar across races, people of color are far more likely to be arrested, prosecuted, and imprisoned for drug offenses. Mandatory minimum sentencing has contributed to racial disparities and the mass incarceration of over 500,000 Americans for non-violent drug law violations at a given time.

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    of 2

    The Drug War, Mass

    Incarceration and Race


    January 2015

    With less than 5 percent of the worlds population


    but nearly 25 percent of its incarcerated
    population1, the United States imprisons more
    people than any other nation in the world largely
    due to the war on drugs. Misguided drug laws and
    harsh sentencing requirements have produced
    profoundly unequal outcomes for people of color.
    Although rates of drug use and sales are similar
    across racial and ethnic lines, black and Latino
    people are far more likely to be criminalized than
    white people.2

    stopped, searched, arrested, convicted, harshly


    sentenced and saddled with a lifelong criminal record.
    This is particularly the case for drug law violations.
    Drug Arrests, 1980-2013
    2,000,000
    1,500,000
    Sales
    1,000,000
    500,000

    Possession

    1980
    1983
    1986
    1989
    1992
    1995
    1998
    2001
    2004
    2007
    2010
    2013

    World Incarceration Rates


    USA
    Rwanda
    Russia
    Brazil
    Australia
    Spain
    China
    Canada
    France
    Germany
    Sweden
    India

    707
    492
    467
    289
    143
    141
    124
    118
    102
    81
    57
    33

    Incarceration
    Rate Per
    100,000

    Source: International Centre for Prison Studies, World Prison Brief.3

    The Drug War Drives Mass Incarceration and


    Racial Disparities in U.S. Judicial Systems
    There were more than 1.5 million drug arrests in the
    U.S. in 2013. The vast majority more than 80
    percent were for possession only.4 At year-end 2012,
    16 percent of all people in state prison were
    incarcerated for a drug law violation of whom nearly
    50,000 were incarcerated for possession alone.5 More
    than 50 percent of people in federal prisons are
    incarcerated for drug law violations. About 500,000
    Americans are behind bars on any given night for a
    drug law violation6 ten times the total in 1980.7
    People of color experience discrimination at every
    stage of the judicial system and are more likely to be

    Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Uniform Crime Reports.8

    Black people comprise 13 percent of the U.S.


    population,9 and are consistently documented by the
    U.S. government to use drugs at similar rates to
    people of other races.10 But black people comprise 30
    percent of those arrested for drug law violations11
    and nearly 40 percent of those incarcerated in state or
    federal prison for drug law violations.12
    Widely adopted in the 1980s and 90s, mandatory
    minimum sentencing laws have contributed greatly to
    the number of people of color behind bars.13 Research
    shows that prosecutors are twice as likely to pursue a
    mandatory minimum sentence for black people as for
    white people charged with the same offense.14
    Mass Incarceration Destroys Families
    2.7 million children are growing up in U.S. households
    in which one or more parents are incarcerated. Twothirds of these parents are incarcerated for nonviolent
    offenses, including a substantial proportion who are
    incarcerated for drug law violations. One in nine black
    children has an incarcerated parent, compared to one
    in 28 Latino children and one in 57 white children.15

    Drug Policy Alliance | 131 West 33rd Street, 15th Floor, New York, NY 10001
    [email protected] | 212.613.8020 voice | 212.613.8021 fax

    Disproprotionate Impact of Drug Laws


    on Black and Latino Communities
    White

    Latino

    Black

    70%
    60%
    50%
    40%
    30%
    20%
    10%
    0%
    U.S. Population

    People in State
    Prison for Drug
    Offenses

    People in Federal
    Prison for Drug
    Offenses

    Sources: U.S. Census Bureau; Bureau of Justice Statistics 16

    Policy Recommendations
    1. Decriminalize drug possession, removing a major
    cause of arrest and incarceration of primarily
    people of color, helping more people receive drug
    treatment and redirecting law enforcement
    resources to prevent serious and violent crime.
    2. Eliminate policies that result in disproportionate
    arrest and incarceration rates by changing police
    practices, rolling back harsh mandatory minimum
    sentences, and repealing sentencing disparities.20
    3. End policies that exclude people with a record of
    arrest or conviction from key rights and
    opportunities. These include barriers to voting,
    employment, public housing and other public
    assistance, loans, financial aid and child custody.
    1

    U.S. Male Incarceration Rates,


    December 31, 2013
    3000

    White

    2000

    Latino

    1000
    0

    Black
    Rate Per 100,000 State and Federal
    Prison

    Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2014.17

    Collateral Consequences of Mass Incarceration


    Punishment for a drug law violation is not only meted
    out by the criminal justice system, but is also
    perpetuated by policies denying child custody, voting
    rights, employment, business loans, licensing, student
    aid, public housing and other public assistance to
    people with criminal convictions. Criminal records often
    result in deportation of legal residents or denial of entry
    for noncitizens trying to visit the U.S. Even if a person
    does not face jail or prison time, a drug conviction
    often imposes a lifelong ban on many aspects of
    social, economic and political life.18
    Nothing has contributed more to the systematic
    mass incarceration of people of color in the United
    States than the War on Drugs.
    Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow (2010).

    Such exclusions create a permanent second-class


    status for millions of Americans, and, like drug war
    enforcement itself, fall disproportionately on people of
    color. Nearly eight percent of black people of voting
    age are denied the right to vote because of laws that
    disenfranchise people with felony convictions.19

    Roy Walmsley, World Population List, 10th Ed. (London: International Centre for
    Prison Studies, 2013); National Research Council, The Growth of Incarceration in
    the United States: Exploring Causes and Consequences (Washington, D.C.: The
    National Academies Press, 2014).
    2
    Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, "Results from the
    2013 National Survey on Drug Use and Health," (Rockville, MD: Substance Abuse
    and Mental Health Services Administration, 2014), Table 1.19B; Jamie Fellner,
    Decades of Disparity: Drug Arrests and Race in the United States (Human Rights
    Watch, 2009); Meghana Kakade et al., "Adolescent Substance Use and Other
    Illegal Behaviors and Racial Disparities in Criminal Justice System Involvement:
    Findings from a U.S. National Survey," American Journal of Public Health 102, no.
    7 (2012). While national arrest data by ethnicity are not systematically collected
    and are therefore incomplete, state-level data show that Latinos are
    disproportionately arrested for drug offenses. Drug Policy Alliance and Marijuana
    Arrest Research Project, "Race, Class and Marijuana Arrests in Mayor De Blasio's
    Two New Yorks: The Nypd's Marijuana Arrest Crusade Continues in 2014,"
    (2014); California Department of Justice, "Crime in California 2013," (2014).
    3
    International Centre for Prison Studies, World Prison Brief,
    http://www.prisonstudies.org/world-prison-brief (2014).
    4
    Federal Bureau of Investigation, "Crime in the United States, 2013,"
    (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, 2014).
    5
    E. Ann Carson, "Prisoners in 2013," (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of
    Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2014), Tables 13 & 14.
    6
    Ibid., Tables 14 & 15.
    7
    Peter Reuter, "Why Has Us Drug Policy Changed So Little over 30 Years?,"
    Crime and Justice 42, no. 1 (2013); National Research Council, The Growth of
    Incarceration in the United States: Exploring Causes and Consequences.
    8
    Federal Bureau of Investigation, Uniform Crime Reports; Bureau of Justice
    Statistics, Arrest Data Analysis Tool.
    9
    U.S. Census Bureau, Quick Facts (2014)
    http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html.
    10
    Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, "Results from the
    2013 National Survey on Drug Use and Health," Table 1.19B.
    11
    Federal Bureau of Investigation, "Crime in the United States, 2013," Table 43.
    12
    Bureau of Justice Statistics, Federal Justice Statistics Program; Carson,
    "Prisoners in 2013," Table 14.
    13
    National Research Council, The Growth of Incarceration in the United States:
    Exploring Causes and Consequences.Barbara S. Meierhoefer, The General Effect
    of Mandatory Minimum Prison Terms (Washington: Federal Judicial Center, 1992),
    20; Marc Mauer, "The Impact of Mandatory Minimum Penalties in Federal
    Sentencing," Judicature 94(2010).
    14
    Sonja B Starr and Marit Rehavi, "Mandatory Sentencing and Racial Disparity:
    Assessing the Role of Prosecutors and the Effects of Booker," Yale Law Journal
    123, no. 1 (2013).
    15
    Bruce Western and Becky Pettit, Collateral Costs: Incarceration's Effect on
    Economic Mobility (Pew Charitable Trusts, 2010), 4.
    16
    Carson, "Prisoners in 2013," Table 14; Bureau of Justice Statistics, "Federal
    Justice Statistics Program," http://www.bjs.gov/fjsrc/.
    17
    Carson, "Prisoners in 2013," Table 8.
    18
    Meda Chesney-Lind and Marc Mauer, Invisible Punishment: The Collateral
    Consequences of Mass Imprisonment (The New Press, 2011).
    19
    Christopher Uggen et al., "State-Level Estimates of Felon Disenfranchisement in
    the United States, 2010," (Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project, 2012).
    20
    The federal government recently indicated its intention to undertake some of
    these reforms. Eric Holder, "Memorandum to United States Attorneys: Department
    Policy on Charging Mandatory Minimum Sentences and Recidivist Enhancements
    in Certain Drug Cases," (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Attorney General, United
    States Department of Justice, 2013).

    Drug Policy Alliance | 131 West 33rd Street, 15th Floor, New York, NY 10001
    [email protected] | 212.613.8020 voice | 212.613.8021 fax

    Page 2

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