Overview
Currently, implicit bias’ impacts on the criminal justice system is more clearly seen through the War on Drugs. Michelle Alexander argues that the War on Drugs “use[s] our criminal justice system to label people of color ‘criminals’ and then engage in all the practices we supposedly left behind”, referring in this case to the practices of the Jim Crow era (Alexander, 2016, p. 2). To the contrary, Ronald and Nancy Reagan, who were major influences on the War on Drugs, advocated for harsher drug laws to protect children and the American family as drugs “shake the foundations of all that we know and all that we believe in” (Wholley & Peters, 2018). This “foundation” refers to the wholesome image of the white American family that is being disrupted. Here, the Reagans are just using an example of the code words described above, further validating Alexander’s argument by providing yet another example of systematic racism.
To learn more about Michelle Alexander consider watching the TED talk below, or visit Amazon here to purchase a copy of her book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
100:1 Drug Ratio
The 100:1 drug ratio was created as a part of the War on Drugs. The ratio stipulates that the same minimum punishments be given for one gram of crack-cocaine as for one hundred grams of cocaine (Russell-Brown, 2009, p. 59). Given that these drugs are essentially the same substance, there is little reason for such a disparity in sentencing. The statistics, however, reveal that 82% of crack users are African Americans while only 8.2% are white, with over two-thirds of cocaine users being white (Russell-Brown, 2009, p. 59). Clearly, the 100:1 ratio is another example of how explicit racism had evolved into implicit bias over time, as regardless of whether the policy was intentionally designed to target African Americans, it overwhelmingly seems to do so in a rather implicit, as opposed to explicit, manner.
Recommendations
Laws such as the 100:1 ratio have clear disproportionate effects on African Americans in the present-day War on Drugs and must be changed to create a more fair legal system. While it could be argued that African Americans use drugs more, this is unsupported as in 2016 significantly more whites (71%) than African Americans (26.7%) were arrested for drug abuse violations (“Arrests by Race and Ethnicity”, 2016). The 100:1 ratio has been modified to 18:1 through the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, yet this still creates a disparity and uneven laws (United States Sentencing Commission, 2015, p. 3). Not only does this mean the laws need to be further changed, but greater diversity needs to occur in representation as given that many politicians are white men, “our laws reflect the beliefs of the male majority”, thus often harming African Americans (Morgan, 2009, p. 677). A more diverse representation has implications for policing tactics and media programming as well, indicating how all these systems are interrelated. Policing tactics and media are discussed on a separate page of this site, and the policing tactics page can be seen here, while the media page can be seen here.
To learn see the FBI Crime Statistics for 2016 click here.
To read the United States Sentencing Commission Report on the 100:1 ratio click here.