Drug war causes high U.S. incarceration rate

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 * Share links: Drug War, drugwar, drug war, drug wars, DrugWar, war, and majority. See drug war charts. See categories: Charts and graphs and maps. See also: Private prisons and private power. See The U.S. Drug War. Republicans lead. Democrats follow. Everybody pays. See Race, ethnicity, and the drug war. See Cannabis is safer. See Brutality and the Drug War. See Cost of U.S. drug war.



See: Number incarcerated in the USA peaked in 2008. And: Cost of U.S. drug war.

Incarceration Nation.. By Fareed Zakaria, Time magazine, April 02, 2012. "America's War on Drugs Drives High Incarceration Rates."

People in prisons and jails for drug-related crime
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 * See also: Drug war causes high U.S. incarceration rate.

How it happened
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'''Chart below is a state and federal prison incarceration rate timeline. Jail inmates are not included.'''



Chart source: The Score: Why Prisons Thrive Even When Budgets Shrink. In The Nation. By Mike Konczal and Bryce Covert, September 24, 2014. Quote below from article (emphasis added):


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 * Explosion in incarcerations since the 1980s. Under the "war on drugs," aggressive policing drove up the percentage of those in state prisons for drug offenses from 6.4 percent in 1980 to 22 percent in 1990. More minor drug charges made it easier for prosecutors to push felony charges by citing a defendant’s prior record. These convictions triggered harsh sentences under new guidelines like California’s "three strikes" law, passed during the same period. The enforcement of these punitive new laws was, and remains, racist: according to the ACLU, black people are 3.73 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than whites, though they are equally likely to use. This, in turn, makes black people vulnerable to the rest of the criminal-justice system.
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See also:.

Drug-related crime
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 * See also: Drug war charts and maps. And: Brutality and the drug war.

Emphasis added to the quotes.


 * Prisons & Drug Offenders | Drug War Facts.
 * True cost of drugs: More than half of inmates currently in U.S. federal prisons were convicted of narcotics offences. June 12, 2011. Daily Mail. The article discusses state prisons, too. Also, it discusses many aspects of drug-related crimes. For example; "The second main area is economic-related crimes where an individual commits a crime to fund a drug habit. These include theft and prostitution."
 * Drugs and Crime Facts. U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics: "In 2004, 17% of state prisoners and 18% of federal inmates said they committed their current offense to obtain money for drugs. In 2002 about a quarter of convicted property and drug offenders in local jails had committed their crimes to get money for drugs, compared to 5% of violent and public order offenders. Among state prisoners in 2004 the pattern was similar, with property (30%) and drug offenders (26%) more likely to commit their crimes for drug money than violent (10%) and public-order offenders (7%). In federal prisons property offenders (11%) were less than half as likely as drug offenders (25%) to report drug money as a motive in their offenses."

"The FBI has reported that almost one-third of people convicted of robbery and burglary, and more than one-quarter of people convicted of larceny, committed their crimes to get money for drugs. Moreover, 6.5 percent of the murders in the United States in 1990 occurred in narcotics-related circumstances" -- Rethinking America's wasteful war on illicit drugs. By Jerry V. Wilson (former chief of police for the District of Columbia). Jan. 18, 1994. Washington Post.

The Nov. 2, 1995 Chicago Tribune reported: "The latest Bureau of Justice Statistics [BJS] survey of U.S. prison inmates in 1991 found that 27 percent of robbers admitted they committed crimes to buy drugs; 30 percent of burglars said so, and 5 percent of convicted murderers did." -- See Table 3 in the BJS report Fact Sheet: Drug-Related Crime. September 1994, NCJ–149286.

Drug-related homicides
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 * Drugs and Crime Facts. U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. Has drug-related homicide chart from 1987-2007, with rates of 3.9% to 7.4% for drug-related homicides. "The Uniform Crime Reporting Program (UCR) of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reported that in 2007, 3.9% of the 14,831 homicides in which circumstances were known were narcotics related. Murders that occurred specifically during a narcotics felony, such as drug trafficking or manufacturing, are considered drug related."
 * Drug Related Crime . March, 2000 article. Office of National Drug Control Policy. Article quote (emphasis added):
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 * Why Statistics on Drug-Related Crime are Difficult To Interpret: Homicide as an Example. ... The FBI does not include as drug-related a murder that occurs during a robbery or a burglary committed by someone under the influence of drugs or a murder that occurs during a robbery committed to obtain money to buy drugs. In these cases, the homicide is recorded by its relationship to the most serious offense only, and robbery and burglary are more serious than drug trafficking in the FBI offense classification and in most State laws. Thus, current FBI homicide information may not categorize a large number of drug-related murders as so related.
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 * OPED: War Won't Solve the Drug Problem. July 15, 1999. Washington Post. By Rob Stewart, of the Drug Policy Foundation. "In 1988, just over half of the murders in the city [New York City] were 'drug-related.' But once the researchers examined the circumstances of the murders, they discovered that the clear majority, 74 percent, were results of the drug trade, not drug use (14 percent) or the need to get money for drugs (4 percent)."

Parole violations and drugs
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16.1% of parole violators returned to state prisons in 1997 for drug related violations; for failing drug tests, possession of drugs, failing to report for drug testing, failing to report for alcohol or drug treatment. Info is from Table 21 (below) of the PDF for this report: Trends in State Parole, 1990-2000. NCJ 184735. October 2001. U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics.

See.

Sentence length causes huge incarceration rate
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 * 2003. Federal Judge Quits, Calls Judicial System Unjust. Associated Press (AP) story, National Public Radio interview, and Judge John S. Martin's statement. "The result, he said, is a slew of lengthy prison sentences for low-level drug dealers 'who society failed at every step.' ... While many judges have criticized sentencing guidelines, it is unusual for a judge to publicly cite the frustrations of the job in stepping down." -June 25 2003 AP story. See also: Let Judges Do Their Jobs. By Hon. John S. Martin Jr..
 * Dissenting Opinions of Judges, Federal Drug Sentencing, Mandatory Minimum Sentences. A list of many articles by judges. At November Coalition.

Mandatory Minimum sentences or truth in sentencing
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 * See also: Drug War, mandatory minimum sentencing, NRA, and guns.

See Mandatory sentencing. See also this page. Mandatory Minimum sentencing is often used for non-violent crimes such as drug possession. It is a modern-day way to create concentration camps for drug-using "undesirables." Sentences that usually do not allow parole until at least around 80% of the sentence served. Federal laws, and most states, have mandatory minimums. The majority of U.S. prisoners are in due to the drug war in some way or another.

See War on Drugs, and  Sentencing Reform Act.

Life for pot
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 * See main article: USA. Life for pot. See also: Number of marijuana prisoners in the USA.

Cannabis arrests
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 * See: Number of marijuana prisoners in the USA.



Nixon and Reagan. War on Drugs
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Drug War Invented by Nixon to Extend His Power'''. By Fintan O'Toole. Aug. 13, 1999. Irish Times.'''

In June 1971 Richard Nixon declared a "War on Drugs."

Papa Bush's massive drug war escalation
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Reagan, and propaganda of incarceration nations
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 * See also: Reagan's war on cannabis.

Welcome to America
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Cannabis is safer
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Categories
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