Liz Smith | 03/31/2009 12:00 am

Liz Smith: The Cost of the War on Drugs

In response to: Is the American prison system wrong for employing solitary confinement as a means of discipline?

Of course The New Yorker is right and solitary confinement is cruel and unusual punishment.

The entire criminal justice system in this country is horrible, overcrowding and also cramming the jails full of people on minor drug charges, which is outrageous. The war on drugs has ended up costing us more than it ever gained for us. (See what’s going on along the Mexican border, for instance!) We already know we can send a person through Harvard for what it costs to slam all of them into jails. And if you don’t believe this is a racist country, look at the race we have condemned to prison.

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The "War On Drugs" is idiotic and ineffective. A song I love called "Underwear Goes Inside The Pants" starts off with the best statement about the idiocy of the "War On Drugs"…

"Why is marijuana not legal? Why is marijuana not legal?
It’s a natural plant that grows in the dirt.
Do you know what’s not natural?
80 year old dudes with hard-ons. That’s not natural.
But we got pills for that.
We’re dedicating all our medical resources to keeping the old guys erect,
but we’re putting people in jail for something that grows in the dirt?"

By Rebecca G on 03/31/2009 6:37 am

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Love it.

By Ms. Dee on 03/31/2009 11:57 am

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The only thing I will say is that Segregation = poverty + Poverty = crimes.

When the society we all live in decides to prevent a certain races to not prosper and receive the same treatment that others are receiving then you have people walking around with no hope, no motivation, no jobs, and MONEY to support themselves and their families; there is bound to be crimes. Then they are bought to justice, only to meet a bias self-righteous judge who shares the same mentality with the rest of employers etc. and these people are sent to prison for X amount of years. When they leave prison the cycle begins again.

The government’s solution to segregation is to build housing and dump all these people in one area of a city; and problem solve. Well, it is the biggest recipe for disaster. When you take groups of people that have been deprive of a better way of live and put them together, the problem magnifies into a much more complex situation. These same people are now psychology damage. We see the result of the feeling of despair.

Unless society stops segregation and do more integration, we will continue to see poverty and crowded prisons.

Stop thinking that you are better than others by stop discriminating

Offer a person a JOB and the opportunity to do better!!!!!!!!!!!!!

By A Amedee on 03/31/2009 7:43 am

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With tax money from legalization we could solve a lot of problems. Our antiqauted system is allowing people to starve, not only for food but for knowledge.Legalize prostitution and drugs. No different than the alchohol prohibition did not work , this so called war on drugs creates havoc.

By S G on 03/31/2009 8:36 am

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Agreed.

By Amanda C on 03/31/2009 9:19 am

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I still believe education and access to good teachers who care can help even a child who has a bad home situation. A good way to start balancing the defecit of power would be to give all schools the same amount of funding, ENOUGH funding - extra for those who need a lot of updating to bring it up to the level of the best school in the country.

That would close a huge gap right there. Every child deserves an education, and that education shouldn’t be dependent on whether or not their parents can afford a rental in a good neighborhood with good schools.

By Amanda C on 03/31/2009 9:18 am

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Amanda C, you are SO right! It all begins with good education especially at the formative years from (infancy to age six)when a child’s development can be molded to me healthy expectations in society, but it doesn’t stop there. Parents must do their part at home as well too. Parents cannot depend on teachers to educate their children on values no matter how good the teacher or the school; teaching a child good values starts in the home.

However, there are several factors at play concerning this situation. In my opinion, the primary problem is segregation; and it is a direct result of poverty. We know that with poverty comes despair and crime. This problem mostly plagues people of colour, blacks, Hispanics, and immigrants etc. the numbers from prison officials will confirm just that. These people should be able to have the same opportunities (jobs, schools, other social services, programs) that the rest of the population has so that they are able to better care for their family. Every parent’s wants to see their child do well in life; not commit crime and go to prison. However, with all the constraints that these people face, it is not easy for them to accomplish a good way of life.

Another contributing factor is that these same parents are out there struggling; working for minimum wage is often too tired from work and may come home late and have no time to spend with their child. That said, children are left to take care of themselves. So the problem increases.

We have a situation (segregation and poverty = no education or job) that is causing a great deal of problem with hunger, drugs, theft, violence etc. that often result in prison time. The solution is equal opportunity to jobs, education, etc. Racism is very much alive in America, (don’t tell me we have a black president because it is like using that as a shield) we have to stop that nonsense of treating people differently because of their race. We as Americans should be ashamed that we are the wealthiest and most powerful country in the world; yet we have this dirty little secret of the worst poverty cases next to the third world countries. We are ought to be a shame of that!!

We all have the same bodily functions; yet some finds the nerve to think that they are better than other because the skin colour is different. That is so outrageously shallow.

Racism in America has not changed; it has camouflage itself to make its victim look guilty of not trying to reach the American Dream when in fact the American Dream is very far reaching for vast majority of people of colour.

By A Amedee on 03/31/2009 8:13 pm

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Oops some erorrs!!!

By A Amedee on 03/31/2009 8:16 pm

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Gosh what a great post, you have nailed the problem on the head! Print this out and mail it to Congress! ;)

I most definitely agree with you on parental involvement, but we cannot regulate home life past making sure children are fed, clothed and not abused as you have also stated. We don’t know how educated a parent is, or what they were taught or not taught. They also probably work a lot of jobs and come home tired and can’t be as involved as they should be, or they may have illegal jobs (prostitution, drug sales, ect)

That’s why I believe that public schools should have some kind of involvement as well with parents on simple things, like manners, cleanliness, parenting, ect, especially in poor areas! These people probably didn’t have parents of their own to teach them, and these are areas of life that MUST be taught, they aren’t a natural instinct for a lot of people. I also think schools should act as a safety net for children whose parents don’t support them academically or emotionally.

As a personal comment, I grew up poor in a rich neighborhood. My grandmother spent all her money on the mortgage to make sure my younger brothers and I were able to go to a good school, because she knew that is what was important. But, as an older woman taking care of 3 kids, she didn’t really teach me how to clean, how to know if my clothes smelled (it sounds silly, but I had no idea if i smelled, it just wasn’t impressed upon me that i should pay attention to that.), ect. But she did teach me independence and manners which have helped me along the way to teach myself all these things.

But not everyone has a great Grandma like me. :)

By Amanda C on 04/01/2009 11:21 am

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All I know is that there’s very little creative thinking at work when it comes the punitive options available to our judiciary. Incarceration seems to be the best idea we can come up with. That, or extermination. And it’s all just archaic. All too often, even our school’s are distracted from their developmental purpose in order to idendify the next generation of the imprisioned. I’m not saying there aren’t some human beings who are so dreadfully anomolous that they must remain restrained for the rest of their lives. But we waste a lot of humanity applying antiquated forms of behavioral psychology on a population whose "crimes", in many cases, constitute nothing more than rational behavior given the insurmountable disadvantages built into their "home" environment.

By Ms. Dee on 03/31/2009 12:10 pm