True Measure Of Our Commitment To Justice: Just Mercy By Bryan Stevenson

"The true measure of our commitment to justice… cannot be measured by how we treat the rich, the powerful, the privileged, and the respected among us. The true measure of our character is how we treat the poor, the disfavored, the accused, the incarcerated, and the condemned”. Bryan Stevenson (Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption). Bryan Stevenson reveals the true foundations of a just and fair society, yet when applied to the United States we fail to meet the expectations of a reasonable society. Ever since the Enlightenment, it has been posited that human beings have inherent, inalienable rights when they are born, and yet the War on Drugs has stripped minorities of their inalienable human rights. The War on Drugs has disproportionately
After getting incarcerated, minorities face felony disenfranchisement laws. The African Americans that end up getting arrested, also lose their right to vote. Unfairly targeted minorities lose the fundamental right that makes them an American citizen in the U.S. democracy. The drug war has instead become an attack on civil liberties. Expert Sayaka Fukumi states “At the height of the War on Drugs, Americans were willing to sacrifice their own civil liberties… they even approved of extreme measures”. The loss of civil liberties is destroying the U.S. democracy, it has reached the point where “the United States is the only democracy in the world to deprive its citizens of the right to vote after they have completed their sentences”. This deprivation of voting leads to a misrepresentation in the government where the same politicians that support drug war policies become entrenched within the system. Consequently from the disenfranchisement and incarceration, blacks lose their social mobility with prospects of future employment and income dismal. Graham Boyd sadly claims how “the drug war is the new Jim
The fearmongering rhetoric of the War on Drugs has jacked up the price of security in the United States. American society has become desensitized to the common systemic rights abuses caused by the War on Drugs that we now accept them as everyday practice to stop drug abuse. Furthermore, the method that the War on Drugs uses to approach the drug problem is inherently flawed. With status quo means, the War on Drugs is unwinnable. The approach taken to end drug abuse is completely ignores the economics of the War on Drugs. The War on Drugs only targets the supply chain of drugs, however without solving the issue of demand, there will always be more suppliers to meet the constant demand. A policy proposal to solve the enduring problem of drug abuse is the four pillars drug strategy. This four main principles it focuses on are prevention, treatment, harm reduction, and enforcement. This strategy would not focus on tracking and destroying drugs, but would rather focus on the treatment of drug abusers, subsequently leading to their reintegration into society. This proposal creates more treatment and rehabilitation centers which would provide drugs and safe injection sites for the drug abusers. Although, this method seems counterintuitive, it allows for the drug abusers to focus on other aspects of their life and dealing with their