The federal government spends over sixteen billion dollars to enforce drug laws every year, not including the costs to house and care for those convicted drug offenders. Putting this in perspective, that is about ten billion estimated taxpayers’ dollars a year because taxpayers pay for each individual sent to prison just for possession of marijuana (Boaz, 2000). A very striking example of these laws would be Louisiana, where being caught with a joint could result in six months in the country parish, while a second offense can result in up to five years, and a third up to twenty years of jail time (Barcott 2014). Not to mention that the prohibition of marijuana is commonly a waste of police officer’s time, especially in the eyes of police officers themselves, some of which have joined a group called Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. Jack Cole, retired New Jersey State Police Lieutenant, has made some valuable points such as when an officer could have been investigating something serious, such as domestic abuse, current prohibition laws require officers to instead invest their time chasing a couple of harmless teenagers smoking marijuana.…
Broken windows theory is a belief that the environment has an effect to crime and the anti-social behavior of the neighborhood. If the environment is vandalized or is run down that alone would cause the area to be on that is high in crime and with anti-social behavior. The Broken windows theory has been subject to a lot of scrutiny from the public, many point out that they target poor and minority filled communities. The theory itself states that if an environment is broken down or vandalized there would be a higher rate of crime in that area. This would mean that poor and minority areas would be targeted more by police and impacted more than a neighborhood that is economically better and has a lower percentage of minorities living tin the area.…
While the outcome of the application of the broken windows theory is debatable, it has been credited by some (for example, Skogan, 1990; Kelling and Coles, 1996) with remarkable reductions in crime in New York City. When New York City’s police commissioner was William Bratton and the mayor was Rudolph Giuliani, the police in NYC practiced such relentless social control that they helped to change community norms (Delisi, 2003). Skogan (1990) points out that zero-tolerance policies related to social disorder, that were implemented in NYC, resulted in a dramatically safer and cleaner city. Wilson, himself, said in an interview that, “A lot of police agencies have responded to this idea of the broken window. Probably the most famous was the U.S.…
Broken windows policing has been used in New York City from the 1990’s until present time. Broken windows theory was first described by George Kelling and James Wilson in an Atlantic Monthly article published in 1982. The success of dropping major crime rate in New York City was due to external factors not controlled under the policing method. The premature legitimization given to James Wilson and George Kelling, paved the way for the racist “ stop and frisk” procedure to occur in New York City. The broken windows policing is not an effective strategy for reducing crime and it gives officers an amble amount of discretion to discriminate, the real reason for a decrease in crime is contributed to the decrease in the rate of unemployment.…
Hanna Tarbell Professor Branca Final Essay December 7, 2015 Weed Chronicles What comes to your mind when I say the words: marijuana, weed, bud? Do you think about the positives and how it helps people get through the day or do you just think about the “stoners” or the “abusers”? Way back in 1820’s marijuana had become mainstream in the medical world. A researcher found it cured headaches, and increased appetite, and helped some people to sleep. But nowadays it is close to becoming one of the go to medicines for the health world.…
Annotated Bibliography Carey, S. E., Nestor, L., Jones, J., Garavan, H., & Hester, R. (2015). Impaired learning from errors in cannabis users: Dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and hippocampus hypoactivity. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 155, 175-182. doi:10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2015.07.671…
The families of these inmates are not the only ones dealing with the consequences of Rikers Island. There are several financial consequences that the city is facing due to the operation on Rikers Island. Being Rikers Island is an aging facility, the maintenance costs are significant. There is also a transportation cost to the overall corrections system due to the location of Rikers Island. Considering when inmates are transported for court appearances, the corrections department has to budget $31 million each year for transportation costs.…
This statistic shows that even though both non-white and white individuals use Marijuana about the same, the non-white minority is more likely to be arrested because of their race. This targeting…
In the 1990s then mayor of New York City Rudy Giuliani pushed the broken windows theory of crime control and made changes to the police departments accordingly. However, David Dinkin, who was mayor before Giuliani, was truly the one who began this method of policing. He hired 8,000 new officers and a new police commissioner. (Business Insider) While it is true that New York’s crime rates have dropped in the past few decades, the reasons behind this are unclear.…
Should Medical Marijuana be Federally Legalized: An Annotated Bibliography David C. Peters II. “Patients and Caregivers Report Using Medical Marijuana to Decrease Prescription Narcotics Use.” Humboldt Journal of Social Relations, vol. 35, 2013, pp. 24–40. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/humjsocrel.35.24.…
The decriminalization of marijuana has already begun across several 20 of the 50 states, allowing personal consumption with many states treating violations as minor offenses similar to traffic infractions. The U.S. Sentencing Commission pinpoints marijuana as the most popular drug of choice for convicted offenders. In a 2014 survey, the Pew Research Center found that 54% of Americans feel that marijuana should be legalized, an overwhelming 76% Americans felt that, if not legalized, small amounts of marijuana for personal use should not draw jail time (Pew Research Center, 2014). We are undoubtedly beginning to see a cultural shift in support of the decriminalization of nonviolent offenses, particularly involving the possession and recreational use of drugs. However, most agree that the production and trafficking of illicit drugs should remain a punishable offense.…
Research shows that blacks make up 50 percent of all drug arrests in the U.S. There is a large arrest gap between blacks and whites for marijuana. Even though whites use drugs at the same rate, blacks are far more likely to be arrested for selling or possessing drugs than whites. This may be due in part to the use of “racial profiling.” In New Jersey, traffic was documented and it shows that 61 percent of drivers stopped and arrested were African-American, while only 15 percent of cars had a black driver or occupant.…
(Patchin & Keveles, 2004) The law makers have put policies in place when it comes to incarceration rates that take billions of dollars each year away from other projects with not much benefit to the safety of the public. We have seen more legislation brought up by states and even the federal government dealing with possession of marijuana in smaller amounts. There are those that believe that people that use drugs need to go to treatment not jail. Some states realize they are wasting money and prison space incarcerating people for simple possession charges.…
Our police department spends countless hours arresting marijuana users. For instance, police officers arrest marijuana users every fifty-one seconds, according to Nick Wing the author of the article Police Arrested Someone For Weed Possession Every 51 Seconds. Not all marijuana offenders get jail time but it is documented criminal background. This report can keep them from getting a job, housing benefits, and loan, according to the article “6 Powerful Reasons to Legalize Marijuana” by Owen Poindexter.…
Marijuana has, compared to other both legal and illegal drugs, low effects on the human body. “No death from marijuana overdose has ever been reported and the ill effects of alcohol, nicotine, and prescription painkillers (...) vastly overweight those of marijuana” ( Ingraham, Janet. “Lee, Martin A. Smoke Signals: A Social History of Marijuana--Medical, Recreational, and Scientific”). Research has also shown that marijuana “ use does not lead to physical dependence, and there are no withdrawal symptoms when the drug is not discontinued” (“drug use” Britannica School. Encyclopaedia Britannica).…