War On Drugs Summary

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known for murder, rapes and kidnapping. Stimson than estimates that, with the legalization of marijuana, organizations like the Mexican Drug Cartel will thrive, which may lead to an increase crime levels in the United States. Bryan Stevenson an Executive Director of Equal Justice Initiative and law professor, in his work Drug Policy, Criminal Justice and Mass Imprisonment, published in 2011, criticizes current “war on drugs” policies and discusses possible alternative methods of punishments for drug related offences. Stevenson argues that the outcome of “war on drugs” in the United States has led to an increase in prison population in the last 25 years, “mandatory sentencing and lengthy prison sanctions for low-level drug use has become the primary cause of mass incarceration.” Stevenson states that drug related arrests in the US have tripled in the two decades, most of them being for simple possession, where 43 present of all arrests were for marijuana offences. Where those arrested and later imprisoned people, as argued by Stevenson, “have no …show more content…
These issues include an increase in drunk driving and decreased arrests for it while at the same time drug related arrest have increased. In addition, government spends more to incarcerate the offenders, whom are more likely to re-offend, rather than to spend on the drug treatment which proved to be an affective practice in drug offence prevention. The research studies by the Rand Corporation and others suggest, “[cost effective drug] treatment [programs] was estimated to reduce crime associated with drug use and the drug trade up to 15 times as much as incarceration” However, Stevenson adds, several states have adopted drug treatment policies which resulted in the decreased incarcerations for the first time in the last 38