Race and Criminal Justice | American Civil Liberties Union

Question 1

What is the War on Drugs?

Accepted Answer

President Richard Nixon declared a “war on drugs” in 1971. By the 1980s, the link between minorities, drugs, and crime was firmly cemented in American rhetoric. Media hysteria about an unsubstantiated crack epidemic among Black communities prompted Congress to pass draconian mandatory minimum sentencing laws against crack cocaine. The war on drugs has sent millions of people to prison for low-level offenses, and seriously eroded our civil liberties and civil rights while costing taxpayers billions of dollars a year, with nothing to show for it except our status as the world’s largest incarcerator.

Question 2

Is there institutional racism in marijuana arrests?

Accepted Answer

On average, a Black person is 3.64 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than a white person, even though Black and white people use marijuana at similar rates. In every state, and in over 96 percent of the counties examined in our 2020 analysis, Black people were much more likely to be arrested than white people for marijuana possession. Overall, these disparities have not improved. In 10 states, Black people were more than five times more likely to be arrested.

Question 3

How is police violence a form of institutional racism?

Accepted Answer

Police violence stems from this country’s history of using police to oppress marginalized people. American policing has never been a neutral institution. It perpetuates racism and oppression by design. From “slave patrols” that used terror and torture against enslaved Black people engaged in uprisings, to armed militia that enforced Black Codes and Jim Crow, to police that subverted labor unions to benefit political elites in the 19th century, policing has always been tied to suppression, surveillance, and control.

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