Arresting Blacks

HOW DRUG LAWS REDISTRIBUTE WEALTH

Anew report tells us something most already knew: Blacks in El Paso
County are far more likely than whites to be incarcerated for drug
crimes. El Paso County blacks are a whopping seven times more apt than
whites to be imprisoned for drugs, based on a national report by the
Justice Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that
wants to reform sentencing policies.

Though El Paso County residents should be outraged, blacks in some
parts of the country face prison for drugs at 10 times the rate of
whites.

The solution to this de facto racism, of course, is simple: Stop
imprisoning people for trading in drugs or using them.

Recreational drug use isn't good, and black leaders, as well as white
leaders, should do everything possible to eradicate it from their
communities. But the government's war on drugs has done little, if
anything, to curtail drug use among blacks or any other Americans. A
reduction in drug use involves the work of counselors, parents,
teachers, preachers, doctors and friends. It takes a culture, not
armed state agents charged with feeding a growth industry of
incarceration.

Joel Dyer, author of "The Perpetual Prisoner Machine; How America
Profits from Crime," told The Gazette that blacks are
disproportionately arrested for drugs mostly because of their
collective economic plight.

"We still have a higher percentage of blacks than whites living in
poverty," Dyer said. "In policing, communities tend to have more
enforcement in minority and low income neighborhoods. That means if
you're using drugs, and you live in one of those neighborhoods, you're
more likely to get caught. You are likely to be defended by a busy
public defender's office, rather than a private lawyer who can spend
ample time and money on your case. Once you're in prison for drugs,
you stand a good chance of becoming a violent criminal because it's
tough to survive in prison."

Dyer, an expert on the public/private prison phenomenon, explains that
for nonviolent drug convicts, survival in the joint often involves
joining a race-based prison gang that mandates violent behavior.

"Stiff penalties for drug crimes can actually generate violent crime
because drug convicts eventually get released, having become violent
in prison," Dyer said.

Research by author and former law professor David Kopel, of the
Golden-based Independence Institute, has found that incarceration of
drug criminals diverts law enforcement resources from violent crime
and results in shorter sentences for violent criminals. That's partly
because imprisonment of common drug offenders has created a cell
shortage. Burgeoning inmate populations have left sheriffs and
politicians throughout the country clamoring for new and bigger
prisons for the past decade. When voters balk at funding them, private
corporations build the institutions and charge the state for feeding
and housing inmates.

In a system that has turned drug users into a cash commodity, some
local sheriffs are soliciting them the way motel chains woo travelers.
Last year, the Park County Sheriff's Office published a flier that
said: "Overcrowding a problem? House your prisoners in our 'park.' "
Park County transports them, houses them and feeds them in the jail
for $45 a day -- the cost of a cheap motel room.

Drug sentences conveniently feed an informal and slightly delusional
pact of public servants and private profiteers desperate for more
prison space needed to grow an industry founded on a fake,
government-mandated need.

Any society that views human captivity as economic development isn't
well. Prisoners are not functional, productive members of society.
They are dependent liabilities that drain money, time and energy from
productive elements of the community. While some who traffic in
prisoners earn profits, it's merely a redistribution of wealth with a
negative economic outcome for everyone else.

We need prisons in order that governments -- not profiteers -- can
protect us from violent predators and those who steal wealth and
destroy property. Prisons and jails are necessary evils, not societal
assets.

Official drug prohibition results in a dangerous and sometimes violent
black market, as forbidden trade usually does. In this case, the
underground market has spawned a judicial racket that places a price
on human heads. Based on our history, it's not surprising that the
humans in our modern inmate trade are disproportionately black.