The “war on drugs” shifted the focus from education and social programs to mass incarceration. The US does not give a single solitary fuck about housing the homeless, unless it’s in a prison.
The war on drugs was never about the drugs. It has always been a way to legally suppress "others." You can't make it illegal for hippies, black folk, Chicanos, ect to vote. You can target groups by making things they are more likely to do illegal. The war on drugs, law and order policies, or red lining to name a few. Have always been ways to continue Jim Crow like policies while selling them to the public as good things for society.
You can target groups by making things they are more likely to do illegal.
Or just stereotype the behavior as "things these people do" and accuse them of it in a judiciary stacked with bigot judges and prosecutors. Over 90% of cases end in plea bargains anyway, so you rarely have to worry about sorting a jury for doubters or nullificationists.
Yep. All they did was shift the language from that of overt racism to “criminals,” and established a strong association between the “others” and crime. Incredibly manipulative and straight-up evil.
Following the rights movements you clamped on with your iron fists
Drugs became conveniently available for all the kids
I buy my crack, I smack my bitch
Right here in Hollywood
Nearly two million Americans are incarcerated
In the prison system, prison system of the U.S.
They're trying to build a prison
For you and me to live in
Another prison system
For you and me
Minor drug offenders fill your prisons, you don't even flinch
All our taxes paying for your wars against the new non-rich
I buy my crack, I smack my bitch
Right here in Hollywood
The percentage of Americans in the prison system
Prison system has doubled since 1985
They're trying to build a prison
For you and me to live in
Another prison system
For you and me
All research and successful drug policies show
that treatment should be increased
And law enforcement decreased while abolishing
mandatory minimum sentences
Utilizing drugs to pay for
Secret wars around the world
Drugs are now your global policy
Now you police the globe
I buy my crack, I smack my bitch
Right here in Hollywood
Drug money is used to rig elections
And train brutal corporate sponsored
Dictators around the world
If it helps, you can think of it as an enhancement to keep people in prison longer or paying more fines, but when the result is poor people are in prison when rich people would not be for the same offense, not having debtors' prisons is a semantic distinction without a meaningful difference.
NPR found that in the vast majority of America, defendants can be charged for a public defender, for their own parole and probation, the cost of a jury trial, and their stay in a jail cell. Some jurisdictions have even found ways to charge people “booking fees” after an arrest, even if the arrest never results in a criminal charge, a policy recently upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. My favorite example of this nonsense, though it isn’t in the NPR report, is crime labs. Believe it or not, in some jurisdictions, crime labs are paid fees only if their analysis leads to a conviction. (The fees are then assessed to defendants.) Think about the incentives at work there.
Failure to pay these fines results in — you guessed it — more fines, plus interest. If the debt is sent to a collection agency, those fees get tacked on, too. Ultimately, inability to pay the fines can land you in a jail cell. Which is why we’re now seeing what are effectively debtors’ prisons, even though the concept is technically illegal.
If it helps, you can think of it as an enhancement to keep people in prison longer or paying more fines, but when the result is poor people are in prison when rich people would not be for the same offense, not having debtors’ prisons is a semantic distinction without a meaningful difference.
First, I acknowledge that the justice system is drastically weighted in favor of the rich with the poor disproportionately affected by interaction with, navigating through it, and in drastic need of reform. However, that is decidedly different than criminalizing the poor. Not all poor people have interactions with law enforcement or the justice system for them to be impacted by this.
If the OP wanted to address the imbalanced justice system, they should have said that instead. Its a legitimate criticism! Simply saying that being poor is a criminal offense isn't true, and dilutes from the otherwise important message.
You'd be very wrong. See Nixon's war on drugs, Raegan's expansion of the same effort and creation of the modern US homelessness issue through mental health defunding and social safety net gutting, and pretty much every administration since Eisenhower and their continuing slides toward oligarchy and plutocracy.
There are wealthy and connected individuals out there planning and putting this shit into practice every day so they can further enrich themselves and their goons, either directly or indirectly. You think it a coincidence that the same few dozen individuals have been either directly or indirectly involved in all major administrations, political movements, and social fascism campaigns over the last 60 years? Bush Sr., Manafort, Bannon, Mnuchin, Stone, Adelson, Kissinger...etc