Claim: African-Americans don't use drugs at a higher level than whites but "wind up going to prison six times more.
Verdict: SUPPORTS

Retrieved passages:
title: Race and crime
text: were "pretty." A 2013 report by the American Civil Liberties Union found that blacks were "3.73 times more likely than whites to be arrested for marijuana possession", even though "blacks and whites use drugs, including marijuana, at similar rates." Additionally, in 2015, the National Survey on Drug Use and Health reported that African Americans composed 12.5 percent of the illicit drug users, yet 33 percent of them are incarcerated in state facilities. A 2016 analysis by the "New York Times" "of tens of thousands of disciplinary cases against inmates in 2015, hundreds of pages of internal reports and three years

title: Race and the War on Drugs
text: deaths. African-Americans, who only comprised 13% of regular drug users, made up for 35% of drug arrests, 55% of convictions, and 74% of people sent to prison for drug possession crimes. Nationwide African-Americans were sent to state prisons for drug offenses 13 times more often than white men. Crime statistics show that in 1999 in the United States blacks were far more likely to be targeted by law enforcement for drug crimes, and received much stiffer penalties and sentences than whites. A 2000 study found that the disproportionality of black drug offenders in Pennsylvania prisons was unexplained by higher arrest

title: Race and the War on Drugs
text: leading to a reinforcing effect: as more African-Americans are incarcerated, the more the heuristic is enforced in the eyes of the courts. This contributes to yet higher imprisonment rates among African-American children. High numbers of African American arrests and charges of possession show that although the majority of drug users in the United States are white, blacks are the largest group being targeted as the root of the problem. Furthermore, a study by Andrew Golub, Bruce Johnson, and Eloise Dunlap affirms the racial divide in drug arrests, notably marijuana arrests, where blacks with no prior arrests (0.9%) or one prior

title: Racialization
text: crime, drug use, and even violent and gang-oriented crimes. Although white Americans too have a history of living in poverty, the average national rate of family disruption and poverty among blacks is two to four times higher than among whites. Furthermore, another reason for the United States racialized prison system can be seen with the war on drugs. Despite similar rates of drug use among blacks and whites, blacks make up 50% of those incarcerated for drug use compared to only 26% of whites. While the two examples above point to definite explanations for the United States racialized prison system,

title: Race and crime in the United States
text: African Americans are likely to receive sentences 2.6 years longer than those of whites or light-skinned African Americans. When a white victim is involved, the report found that those with more "black" features are likely to receive a much more severe punishment. A 2013 report by the American Civil Liberties Union found that blacks were "3.73 times more likely than whites to be arrested for marijuana possession", even though "blacks and whites use drugs, including marijuana, at similar rates." A 2016 analysis by the "New York Times" "of tens of thousands of disciplinary cases against inmates in 2015, hundreds of

title: Criminal stereotype of African Americans
text: slightly. By the end of the 1980s, African Americans were more than five times more likely than whites to be arrested for drug-related offenses. Blumstein argues that as national self-report data showed that drug use was actually declining among both African Americans and Whites, it is highly unlikely that these race differences in arrest rates represent "real" patterns of drug use. Instead these crime statistics reflect the government's targeting of only specific types of drug use and trafficking. Furthermore, although the "black drug user" stereotype is heavily associated with young African Americans, a recent survey using self-reported data found African

title: Race and the War on Drugs
text: rates, suggesting the possibility of operative discrimination in sentencing. A 2008 paper stated that drug use rates among Blacks (7.4%) were comparable to those among Whites (7.2%), meaning that, since there are far more White Americans than Black Americans, 72% of illegal drug users in America are white, while only 15% are black. According to Michelle Alexander, the author of "The New Jim Crow" and a professor of law at Stanford Law School, even though drug trading is done at similar rates all over the U.S., most people arrested for it are colored. Together, African American and Hispanics comprised 58%

title: Race and the War on Drugs
text: difference across races with regards to the rates of adolescent drug dealing. A 2012 study found that African American youth were less likely than white youth to use or sell drugs, but more likely to be arrested for doing so. A 2013 study by the American Civil Liberties Union determined that a black person in the United States was 3.73 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than a white person, even though both races have similar rates of marijuana use. Iowa had the highest racial disparity of the fifty states. Black people in Iowa were arrested for

title: Mass racial violence in the United States
text: are almost equal, there is a massive inequality in African-American and Latinos sent to prison for drug related crimes. Drug crimes aside, Latinos and African-Americans are being incarcerated at a much larger rate than Caucasians. This has led to an alarming fact that in 2006, 1 out of every 14 African-American men were in prison, compared to only 1 out of every 106 white men. With current trends forecasting that 1 in 3 black men in the United States will go to prison or jail, focus on fixing criminal issues with minorities has been placed to the forefront of pressing

title: Race and the War on Drugs
text: of all prisoners in 2008, even though African Americans and Hispanics make up approximately one quarter of the US population The majority of prisoners are arrested for drug related crime, and in at least 15 states, 3/4 of them are black or Latino people. A 2012 report by the United States Sentencing Commission found that drug sentences for black men were 13.1 percent longer than drug sentences for white men between 2007 and 2009. Professor Cathy Schnieder of International Service at American University notes that in 1989, African Americans, representing 12-15 percent of all drug use in the United States,

title: Locked in the Poorhouse
text: and Latino and African-American high school students. African-American unemployment continued to be roughly twice that of whites over the 40 years since the Kerner report. The prison-industrial complex had dramatically increased incarceration rates. In no small part because of racially biased drug sentencing, African American men aged 25 to 29 were almost 7 times as likely to be incarcerated as whites. Accordingly, the 40th anniversary Eisenhower Foundation Kerner update recommended that: • The nation’s top strategic domestic priority should embrace win-win employment, economic, and education reforms that simultaneously benefit the anxious middle class, the neglected working class and the truly

title: Criminal stereotype of African Americans
text: Americans are also most overrepresented in robbery in 1993, comprising 62 percent of arrestees. African Americans accounted for 52.5% of homicide offenders from 1980 to 2008, with whites 45.3% and "Other" 2.2%. The offending rate for blacks was almost 8 times higher than whites while blacks account for less than 15% of people living in the United States. For drug related offenses, from 1965 through the early 1980s, African Americans were approximately twice as likely as whites to be arrested. However, with the War on Drugs in the 1970s, African American arrest rates skyrocketed, while white arrest rates increased only

title: Recidivism
text: As compared to whites, African Americans are incarcerated 6.4 times higher for violent offenses, 4.4 times higher for property offenses and 9.4 times higher for drug offenses. African Americans comprise a majority of the prison reentry population, yet few studies have been aimed at studying recidivism among this population. Recidivism is highest amongst those under the age of 18 who are male and African American, and African Americans have significantly higher levels of recidivism as compared to whites. The sheer number of ex-inmates exiting prison into the community is significant, however, chances of recidivism are low for those who avoid

title: Race and the War on Drugs
text: probationers in studies as published under The Urban Institute. The War on Drugs also plays a negative role in the lives of women of color. The number of black women imprisoned in the United States increased at a rate more than twice that of black men, over 800% from 1986 to 1991. During that same period, the percentage of females incarcerated for drug-related offenses more than doubled. In 1989, black and white women had similar levels of drug use during pregnancy. In spite of this, black women were 10 times as likely as white women to be reported to a

title: Race and the War on Drugs
text: arrest (4.3%) were nearly twice as likely to be sentenced to jail as their white counterparts (0.4% and 2.3%, respectively). Harboring these emotions can lead to a lack of will to contact the police in case of an emergency by members of African-American communities, ultimately leaving many people unprotected. Disproportionate arrests in African-American communities for drug-related offenses has not only spread fear but also perpetuated a deep distrust for government and what some call racist drug enforcement policy. Additionally, a black-white disparity can be seen in probation revocation, where black probationers were revoked at higher rates than white and Hispanic

title: Carl Hart
text: co-published research on the use of drugs within prisons in the United States. Black men are disproportionately incarcerated for drug use: while only 13.6% of the population is Black, 37.8% of prisoners are black and 79% of people incarcerated due to crack use are black. However, prison as a solution for drug use is not working. Hart's research finds that drug use continues to occur in prisons, and those with more extensive drug histories tend to use more in prison than those with smaller drug histories. As such, decriminalization of drug use, and alternative policies with an emphasis on effective

title: War on drugs
text: drug users made up for 35% of drug arrests, 55% of convictions, and 74% of people sent to prison for drug possession crimes. Nationwide African-Americans were sent to state prisons for drug offenses 13 times more often than other races, even though they only supposedly comprised 13% of regular drug users. Anti-drug legislation over time has also displayed an apparent racial bias. University of Minnesota Professor and social justice author Michael Tonry writes, "The War on Drugs foreseeably and unnecessarily blighted the lives of hundreds and thousands of young disadvantaged black Americans and undermined decades of effort to improve the

title: U.S. National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence
text: every three African-Americans is in prison, on probation or on parole at any one time – and one out of every two in cities. That is a direct result of the racial bias in our sentencing system and our mandatory minimum sentences. For example, crack-cocaine sentences are longer, and crack cocaine is used more by minorities. Powder cocaine sentences are shorter, and powder cocaine is used more by whites. The result is that our prison populations are disproportionately filled with racial minorities. Yet, at the same time, prison building has become a kind of economic development policy for [white] communities

title: Race and crime
text: of powder cocaine, which had been widely criticized as discriminatory against minorities, mostly blacks, who were more likely to use crack than powder cocaine. Statistics from 1998 show that there were wide racial disparities in arrests, prosecutions, sentencing and deaths. African-American drug users made up for 35% of drug arrests, 55% of convictions, and 74% of people sent to prison for drug possession crimes. Nationwide, African-Americans were sent to state prisons for drug offenses 13 times more often than other races, even though they only supposedly comprised 13% of regular drug users. Racial disparity in commission of violent crime is

title: Criminal stereotype of African Americans
text: males as criminals was so entrenched in society that she said “talking about crime is talking about race”. Between 2005 and 2015, the gap in the incarceration rate between blacks and whites declined while still remaining high. The rate of incarceration for blacks declined -2.0% per year, for Hispanics it declined -2.3% per year while for whites it declined only -0.1% per year. Blacks today continue to be incarcerated at a rate over 2.1 times Hispanics and 5.6 times whites. The disparity varies widely by state and region. Katheryn Russell-Brown in her book "The Color of Crime: Racial Hoaxes, White