The Mass Incarceration of Nations and the Global War on Drugs: Comparing the United States' Domestic and Foreign Drug Policies

This article offers an overview of the current domestic war on drugs in the United States and the subsequent mass incarceration of individuals. The domestic and foreign drug policy fronts are compared by focusing on Plan Colombia. The cornerstone argument is that a "global war on drugs" is occurring with very similar characteristics to the domestic war on drugs. However, entire countries are being incarcerated in the wake of the "global war on drugs," with much larger implications. Keywords: drug war, imperialism, state crime, mass incarceration, Plan Colombia, US military, narcoterrorism ********** SINCE 1975, THE NUMBER OF INDIVIDUALS INCARCERATED IN THE UNITED States has continued to increase incessantly. There was a 300 percent increase in incarcerated individuals from 1980 to 2000, and the United States has surpassed Russia as the world leader of incarceration (Sentencing Project 2000). According to the Sentencing Project, there has been a 500 percent increase over the past three decades (see www.sentendngproject.org). California alone has more individuals incarcerated than the entire country of France; even a smaller state like Michigan has a higher number of incarcerated individuals than France (Wacquant 2005). These massive increases of incarceration were right in line with the war on drugs spearheaded by Ronald Reagan, and along with the war on drugs came a tough-on-crime rhetoric that has never left. The combination of the two, by enforcing tough sentencing aimed especially at drug offenders, has largely contributed to the incarceration boom. The California "three strikes and you're out" law (Zimring, Hawkins, and Kamin 2001) and the Rockefeller drug laws (Drucker 2002) are two of the primary culprits responsible for the growth in incarceration rates due to drug offenses. In an early analysis of the three strikes law in California, it was found that more 25-to-life sentences were meted out for possession of marijuana than for murder, rape, and kidnapping combined (Butterfield 1996). Nonviolent offenders represent the 94 percent of individuals entering federal penitentiaries annually; many of these offenders have been convicted of drug offenses (Donziger 1996). While incarceration rates have soared over the past 30 years, crime rates have remained consistent or have decreased (Wacquant 2005). Why has the United States criminal justice system continued to incarcerate exponentially more offenders each year while the crime rate was dropping? Incarceration/Crime Rate Disconnect Several explanations may help clarify this disconnect between incarceration and crime rates. Many Americans are still concerned about crime and their safety, even though the crime rates suggest that public safety has improved over the years (Wilson and Petersilia 1995). The tough-on-crime rhetoric has overemphasized crime as a major social problem, leading Americans to irrationally fear crime; this public trepidation, fueled by the media's obsession with covering crime since the 1980s, has had an impact on the soaring incarceration rates (Wacquant 2005). The privatization of the prison industry has also contributed to the dissonance between incarceration and crime rates. The prison industry emphasized its cost-cutting ability during an economic crisis created by the lack of space to house criminals (Corrections Corporation of America 1997). These conditions were fertile ground for the expansion of the prison industry, which flourished by housing a growing number of inmates. Although incarceration rates have skyrocketed, incarceration is not the only form of criminal supervision that has continually increased. The numbers of people subjected to prison, jail, probation, and parole have all increased at similar rates from 1980 to 2000 (United States Department of Justice 2000). The United States now spends more on the criminal justice system than on the education system, with a majority of the criminal justice budget going to corrections (Wacquant 2005). …