The Sentencing Project had just released a study finding that for the first time in a quarter of a century, there has been a 21.6 percent decline in the number of blacks incarcerated in state prisons for drug offenses between 1999 and 2005. There has been no corresponding decline at the federal level. At the same time, there's been a 43 percent increase in the number of whites incarcerated for drug crimes. The numbers of people incarcerated in state prisons for drug crimes overall seems to be stabilizing, although the number is still very high. There has been little change in rates of drug use, the number of blacks, whites, and Latinos who use drugs is proportionate to their percentage of the population, although blacks and Latinos are more likely to be incarcerated. Marjiuana-related arrests have risen to 40 percent of all drug arrests, and 80 percent of those are for possession.
The report cites the decline of crack cocaine use as one possible reason for the decline in drug arrests among African Americans, as well as the growing use of drug courts and alternatives to incarceration at the state level. As for the increase in the number of whites arrested for drug crimes, the report is inconclusive but suggests that the growing focus on meth, which whites are more likely to use, has contributed.
Although I've often focused on the racial injustice of the drug war, which is substantial -- law enforcement activities related to drugs have most often focused on the black and poor, the fact is that the way we deal with drugs is not a "black problem." It's possible that these findings may contribute to the growing recognition that fighting drug use through mass incarceration has been counterproductive. It's also possible that there would be nothing better for our drug and corrections policies than a recognition that the drug war is an issue that affects Americans of all races, not just black folks. These findings may contribute to that understanding.
As for the burgeoning consensus among policy-makers that our longtime approach to drugs has failed, I was struck by this quotation cited in The Washington Post report on the study:
David B. Muhlhausen, a senior policy analyst for the conservative Heritage Foundation, said stronger police enforcement of methamphetamine trafficking and use, coupled with treatment options mostly for urban crack cocaine offenders, probably caused the shift. "There is some data out there that suggests that drug courts and drug treatments reduce recidivism," he said. "If you take the less serious offenders and put them into programs other than prison it would be a benefit to society."
Obviously, it's a sign that the political landscape on corrections has shifted considerably when conservatives begin talking about one of the goals of corrections policy as reducing recidivism, not merely punishing offenders.
-- A. Serwer
