When the Draconian drug laws were being enacted African American legislators went along with "law and order" politicians with practices that would incarcerate millions of drug offenders from inner city neighborhoods and help rural politicians make the business of imprisonment a major industry in their districts. Every passing year the drug problem gets worse and its time African Americans make legislative representatives face up to the impact the War on Drug has on us. The U.S. government spends $600 per second in a "war without end." Of the $19 billion the U.S. spent last year on drug laws, 61 percent went to criminal justice and just 30 percent for treatment and prevention programs. [continues 567 words]
Now that African American voters have exercised their electoral franchises, isn't it time they demand that the people they elected correct America's system of racially selective policing, prosecution and mass imprisonment? The operation of the crime control industry continues to devastate lives of millions of black families and the economic and social fabric of their communities. The "law and order" priorities of legislation and judicial actions over recent decades have plagued black families' worse. The nation's lowest wages, life expectancy, highest unemployment and number of single parent households are among African American prisoners, former prisoners, and the ruined communities they come from and are discharged into. [continues 587 words]
The African American community needs to get America's bad habit - "The War on Drugs" - dropped like a hot potato! In contrast to the funds our communities need for parity in America, the U.S. federal government spent $19.18 billion in 2003 on the War on Drugs - a rate of $600 per second - mostly to the detriment of African Americans. States and local governments spend another $20 billion each year on the drug war. Across America, someone is arrested for drug offenses every 20 seconds. Almost a quarter million people - a disproportionate number Black - are expected to be incarcerated for drug law violations in 2004. [continues 710 words]
