Reasons For Mass Incarceration

Mass incarceration is often cited as one of the main pillars of institutional racism in America due to the disproportional amount of minorities incarcerated yearly. The war on drugs is widely acknowledged as one of the main reasons for mass incarceration and its devastating effects on the black community. On June 17, 1971, Richard Nixon officially declared drugs “America's public enemy number one” and thus began the colloquialized War on Drugs (Alexander 16). Seeing as Nixon’s presidency shortly succeeded the Civil Rights Act, Nixon exploited the raw frustration of the remaining segregationists in his campaign for the presidency. Years later, Reagan took office and his supposed drive to “crack down on crime” had an implicit focus on black communities
As a consequence of the drug war, many fathers are being taken away from their families for non-violent, drug-related crimes and even after release, because they carry the “convict tag”, they find it very difficult to reintegrate into society (Alexander 250). Studies have repeatedly shown that children raised by single mothers have a higher chance of being expelled from school, get worse grades, are worse off financially, and have a higher chance of drug use (Debell 428). The absence of fathers is especially a big issue in African American communities that have been struck by the war on drugs, as a "black child born in 1990 is much less likely to be raised by both parents than a black child born during slavery" (Cherlin 110). Black children born in urban areas are at a statistical disadvantage before even being born due to the mass incarceration of people of color. Particularly in the major cities, “many poor people of color live in conditions of concentrated poverty and unemployment that predict the breakdown of community social processes, which in turn produce crime,” (Fagan and Meares 188). “The overwhelmingly poor communities in which many poor African Americans live are marked by unemployment, family disruption, and residential instability,” (Fagan and Meares 188). The living conditions that have been exacerbated by the war on drugs encourage even more crime and recidivism. The “get tough on crime” mentality that was created to discourage crime has, evidently, created conditions that foster even more crime and drug use. Even after being released from prison, it’s virtually impossible to find a job specifically due to the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 and various other policies. The act mentioned above prohibits the federal government from awarding grants to businesses that don’t