Crime and Punishment

“You get high?” When I was in college and during my time in the Marine Corps, every time I went to a party somebody asked me that question. Believe it or not, my answer was no, which immediately made me something of an an outcast. I had never learned to smoke, and I was afraid of cocaine. I had read too much about addiction to think that I was immune to its dangers. Of course, I was not immune to women, and most of the women I was interested in used drugs recreationally as well.

It was one of my girlfriends that convinced me to try marijuana. Since it was her preferred aphrodisiac, she convinced me to go out and buy if for her as well. Today, twenty three States and the District of Columbia have legalized marijuana for medical use. Four States have legalized the weed for recreational use. Two more (and the District of Columbia) have legalized it for recreational use effective in 2015.

I am so glad that I was not arrested for possessing those drugs in Alabama when I was in my early twenties. If I had, I would be a convicted felon. I would have lost the right to vote. I would not have had any of the jobs that I have had, and if I was hungry I would not have been able to get food stamps. I would not have the education I have. I would have been subject to discrimination in the types of housing available to me, I would not be able to serve on a jury. My citizenship rights would have been severely restricted, just like my parents under the Jim Crow laws of the South, and my grandparents under the black codes that existed after Reconstruction, and my great grandparents under slavery.

At the end of 2012 there were more than 2 million people incarcerated in the United States. Another 5 million were on probation or parole. Of those 7 million convicted felons, 40%, or almost 3 million are Black. 

By the grace of God, I am not one of them.

It is difficult to believe, but just a little more than thirty years ago there was a little more than 300,000 people in America’s prisons. How in the hell did we get to 2 MILLION in 30 years? It all started in 1968 when Richard Nixon came up with the “Southern Strategy”. The strategy was to drive a political wedge between the Blacks and poor whites of the south. Franklin Roosevelt and the Democrats had created an unbeatable coalition by bringing them together around the economic benefits of the New Deal. Amid the riots in the inner cities, assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, and the rising visibility of Black nationalists like the Black Panthers, Nixon promised “law and order”.

Nixon won easily, capitalizing on racial fears and separating many poor whites from the Democrats. He used the same strategy to get re-elected in 1972, but was undone by the Watergate scandal. Jimmy Carter, the Democrat from Georgia won the presidency in 1976 as the anti-Nixon, but 1980 would bring Ronald Reagan to the stage.

Reagan would double down on the “Southern Strategy” and kick off his campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi. This was the same place that three civil rights workers had disappeared and had been found later buried in an earthen dam.

Reagan then had the nerve to make a speech about “states’ rights”.  He spent the rest of the campaign demonizing drug dealers, affirmative action and “welfare queens”. The Southern states were his. He would later declare the “War on Drugs”, as “crack cocaine” ironically became a household term.

Reagan’s “War on Drugs” has had a devastating effect on Black America. Almost 3 million children have parents in the prison system. Those children are adversely affected financially, socially, and psychologically. Two out of three of these imprisoned parents are non-violent offenders, many of them imprisoned on minor drug charges. The children are deprived of regular contact with their parents. Many of the children of the imprisoned are teased by other children. Often when released, the parents are barred from welfare programs such as cash assistance for the poor, food stamps, vouchers for rental housing, apartments in public housing, subsidized student loans for college, and employment licenses for many jobs. All of which perpetuates a cycle of poverty that breeds hopelessness and recidivism.

Michelle Alexander has written an excellent book about this subject entitled “The New Jim Crow”. She believes that our “war on drugs” has created a substitute for the Jim Crow system of the past. The Attorney General of the United States, Eric Holder has directed the Justice Department to charge non-violent drug offenders with less severe federal crimes. He supports sentencing more people to rehab than imprisonment for crimes rooted in drug abuse and addiction. The attorney general stated in a recent speech to the American Bar Association that “too many Americans go to too many prisons for far too long, and for no truly good law enforcement reason” and at great public expense.

I agree.

This past Sunday when I went to church I noticed that the church was participating in a program this holiday season to identify children in the community that have parents in prison. The church will then purchase and deliver Christmas gifts to those children.

 I plan to participate.