Posted: March 16th, 2022

The Lingering Effects of the 1980s Crack Epidemic on Inhabitants of Harlem Research Paper

The lingering effects of the 1980s crack epidemic on inhabitants of Harlem Research Paper

Instructions

Topic Can inhabitants of Harlem still feel the lingering effects of the 1980s crack epidemic? 3 Focus Point for Sociology Research Paper This paper will focus on these 3 points. 1. | Crime, Punishment, and Social Control 2. | Social Class: Poverty and Mobility 3. | Racism & Redlining Provided Content: Lecture readings and Two Conduct interviews are provided for this Research Paper.

Required: Include 1 sociological theory. Consensus Theories of Deviance and Crime Required: This paper should be written based on the provided readings; please reference the lecture readings in the report. Required: The writer must add additional research from reliable sources such as government papers and statistics charts.

Required: Two Conduct Interviews will be given with the provided content and must be incorporated into the paper. Required: Bibliography- One Page ( In APA Style ) Reference List – One page ( In APA Style )

Even though the impacts of the crack epidemic are not as severe currently as they were in the 1980s, there seems to be a struggle against the drug’s has implications as it affects communities worldwide.

Can inhabitants of Harlem still feel the lingering effects of the 1980s crack epidemic?

Crime, punishment, and social control

Numerous lives were lost, entire cities were decimated, and massive imprisonment was fueled. That is, however, only part of the plot. Crack cocaine usage has reached epidemic proportions, especially among 13- to 19-year-olds, fueling a recent sharp spike in street violence crimes and pushing the price down to a new low.

Crack addiction has been so pervasive that specialized police units tasked with apprehending carjackers, muggers, and other minor offenders are now catching more crack users than heroin addicts. According to experts, drug use habits have directly impacted the types of crimes perpetrated on the streets.

Historically, heroin users have been blamed for the overwhelming bulk of property crimes, including robbery, entering into cars parked, burglary, and card fraud (Welhausen, 2019).

On the other hand, Heavy users become jittery, anxious, and dangerously desperate due to the Crack. As a result, they are more inclined to engage in violent, opportunistic crimes like mugging, phone theft, and carjacking. In addition, the fact that dealers assist in driving the drug into emerging markets, specifically among clubbers and middle-class consumers, by selling this in a more premium manner, is of utmost worry to cops and crime enforcement authorities. As a result, numerous clubbers have switched to crack as their preferred narcotic (T. Thompson, 2002).

Crack cocaine use has ramifications for the person, his or her family, and society. Abusive behavior, promiscuity, brutality, unintended pregnancy, accidents, divorce, and criminality are all examples of these repercussions. It affects the financial viability of households and the country as a whole.

Every year, the government spends millions on crack regulation. Prosecution, incarceration, therapy, and prevention are funded with this money. In addition, the funds are used to combat worldwide drug smuggling. The crack epidemic has an impact on the healthcare system as well.

As users become more violent, crack cocaine impacts family stability. During a crack cocaine overdose, families and friends become targets of fury. Women in Black and Minority populations have a high percentage of crack usage, contributing to problematic household circumstances. As a result, children of crack addicts are given up for adoption.

Administrators at five prisons have refused to say if they believed the riots that proceeded were connected to the congressional vote. However, the riots have brought the argument over compulsory Judicial action legislation for crack cocaine convictions to the forefront.

Several lawyers and lawmakers argue that these laws, which Legislature decided to keep in the bill, are stricter than those for criminal offenses crack and disproportionately affect impoverished black men (Welhausen, 2019). Commissioners who had spoken to prison administrators frequently added that they learned that most prisoners were served time for drug offenses during their conversation.

Several of the parents of these black youths are anxious and optimistic that the law will be changed. And if the modification isn’t done, that could cause issues. Crack’s assistant director for the Disciplinary Board is the only narcotic with a compulsory jail sentence for possessing, whether or not the purpose is to market.

Possessing heroin or crack cocaine without intending to sell it is a crime punishable by up to a year in prison. The Board also wanted to make crack ownership punishable like other substances are. Others, though, believe that Crack deserves heavier sentences.

 Even though most scientists agree to ingest Crack, whether in the form of a crystalline pellet or powdered, does not make its user aggressive, several law enforcers believe Crack’s thriving street market is incredibly hazardous. Inside the black population, it was a form of class war. Instead, the black community was splintered.

Many respectable, religious black folks in Atlanta, New York, and other major cities across the country were afraid. These were always the most victimized individuals (Dunlap, 2015). Their kids, friends, and individuals in their neighborhood were victims of this drug, which robbed and attacked people.

However, by the early 1990s, many people in black communities began to believe that the answer to crack, criminalization, was far worse than the problem. At that point, there was a considerable reaction against what had been a callous criminal justice response to what may have been a health emergency (Jones, 1995).

Since they had witnessed both the miseries of Crack and the over-militarized government response to this in their immediate neighborhoods, the health care approach caught on faster in the black people than it did everywhere else.

The Office of the Inspector General of the United States Department of Justice dismissed the claim that the CIA made a planned attempt to safeguard the Drug cartels’ cocaine trafficking operation.  They determined that Meneses and Blandon, like other crack dealers of their caliber, were manifestly big drug traffickers who profited themselves only at the expense of innumerable drug users and the communities in which these drug users lived.

They also made a financial contribution to the Contra cause. However, we found little evidence that their operations contributed to the crack epidemic in Los Angeles, let alone the U.S, or that they were a major source of funding for the drug cartels.

With his 1996 Dark League story, San Jose Mercury News reporter Gary Webb caused causes several problems by alleging that the importation of Nicaraguan cocaine began and largely exacerbated the 1980s crack epidemic. Webb claimed that earnings from crack sales were routed to the CIA-backed drug cartels by investigating the lives and affiliations of Los Angeles crack dealers.

The Reagan government’s drug war had severe social repercussions, including the incarceration of many young black males for long periods. The aggravation of drug-related crime despite the decrease in illicit substance use in the United States and heavy police viciousness against black people contributed to several black males, females, and children (T. Thompson, 2002).

The arrests and court appearances that could result in imprisonment for anyone charged with Crack are the first stages of being found with Crack. Second, the long-term stigmas associated with those who have served time in prison for Crack, like being labeled felons on their record.

This impacts career opportunities, better living conditions and creates barriers for those who have lost enthusiasm to abide by the law, making them more likely to be imprisoned again. These effects are still seen to date as government insiders have been involved in the smuggling activities.

As a result of claims that the CIA was involved in funding the crack smugglers, subsequent individuals have kept the connection. This shows the lingering impacts of the crack epidemic date. Some non-governmental agencies also follow the same suit of drug smuggling and are considered a deep state business run by tycoons.

Since the  1980s epidemic, it has been passed from generation to generation to them that have achieved from the business. It is unobjectionable that people get recruited in such groups.

Social class: Poverty and morbidity:

War against drugs measures has devastating consequences for children. Currently, about 1.2 million children have an incarcerated father, and 200 thousand children have a mother who is incarcerated. Black kids are roughly eight times more likely to get a parent in custody, while Latino kids are two times more likely.

Kids are also caught up in the justice system. Even though adolescents of all races abuse and sell drugs at nearly the same rate, minority youth now account for 58 to 76 percent of substance abuse crimes.  In addition, black children are detained at thirty times that of young white men, and Hispanic youth are imprisoned at thirteen times that of white kids.

Every year, drug misuse causes untold damage to public health and safety worldwide, endangering many societies’ peaceful growth and smooth running. To establish strategies that lower the economic costs of drug usage, it is vital first to comprehend them.

Unfortunately, data restrictions in the numerous areas must be considered appropriate to reach even a rough estimate of the total worldwide cost of drug addiction stymie attempts to determine the global monetary burden of drug usage (Evans et al., 2016). When looking at the economic repercussions of drug misuse, it’s crucial to account for the costs of policy decisions and any benefits and externalities.

Although calculating the total, real-dollar costs of drug addiction worldwide are difficult, analyzing its ramifications and knowing the domains it affects can help us obtain a better grasp of how drug abuse affects the world.

By using available facts, the current discussion examines the implications of drug misuse in four basic domains: crime, public safety, health, governance, and productivity. Drug abuse’s effects on those areas are influenced by various interconnections inside and beyond these fields.

Other factors stated in chapter one of the Board’s yearly report for 2011, such as social structures and cultural values, and government policies. The current chapter concentrates on substances subject to global control and will not detail the repercussions of drug usage, particularly given the high frequency of polydrug addiction.

It’s also crucial to remember that expenses and penalties differ greatly depending on where you live. Although data restrictions made this impossible in certain cases, costs are explored in the context of different locations.

Substance deaths are predicted to contribute to 0.6 to 1.5 percent overall mortality in adults aged 15 to 64 years worldwide. Yearly, it is anticipated that above 200 thousand individuals die from drug overdoses, with youngsters being particularly vulnerable.

Activities that would have been undertaken if not for substance usage, a loss of potential earnings and production, and thus GDP, as a result of the decline in the supplies or efficiency of the labor is estimated as lost productivity. In the U. S., lost production due to labor non-participation is substantial.

Concerning the amount of medication or jail, drug addicts would be unable to join in job, school, or learning while in the hospital or imprisoned, resulting in a financial loss. It should be highlighted that if job possibilities are already few, these production expenses would be reduced.

Also, poverty and substance abuse are intertwined in a variety of ways. Substance abuse can be used to cope with the stress of poverty, persistent social tension, and other traumatic occurrences. There is much less access to support services, health care, and community organizations in disadvantaged neighborhoods.

Furthermore, the link between substances and poverty can operate both ways: drug misuse can drain users’ money, resulting in a lack of responsibility for family and friends as well as other duties.

The epidemic was also associated with poor people. Crack was cheap, and it was why it grew to be an epidemic. In the interview, Arthur said that it was affordable, and the 28 years’ crack addicts said it is not a drug for armatures in the drugs but for big boys in the field.

As deindustrialization occurred in the epidemic days, the impact is still hindering the developments in the new era. To make it worse, the new drug in the market has been introduced, the opioid, compared to the crack epidemic.

One of the magazines by NYC has indicated that millions in New York City are living below what is called the poverty line. These poverties are claimed to have resulted from school dropouts, male unemployment, elevated rates of dependency, and some due to females heading the houses.

As much as they have contributed to high crime rates in the city are still connected to the crack epidemic, which led to school dropout, broken marriages, and joblessness, especially among the black communities, who were accused of running the business of drug smuggling. By virtue of their skin color, they were denied jobs and were connected to the crack epidemic in the name of racism.

These also resulted in robbery cases rising and more drug trafficking and some getting depressed to death, leaving their families headed by women. Suddenly, this mentality is still present today, and the epidemic’s effects are still felt in the country. If not recognized anywhere, Blacks with better living standards are associated with drug smuggling.

Racism and redlining:

To avoid displaying apparent racism, societies evolved into a racial judicial system. Because Black Americans constituted the predominant crack cocaine users, the government could draft crack-specific legislation. She believes that by doing so, she was able to arrest black people without having to imprison white Americans.

As a result, there was a troublesome and offensive speech among African Americans and a persistent narrative regarding crack addiction (Glanton, 2017). The criminalization of black people’s crack abusers was framed as risky and damaging to society.

Young black men were disproportionately affected by misdemeanor drug charges for crack cocaine, who consequently lost voter rights, accommodation, and job opportunities. While families did whatever they needed to survive, the economic failures resulted in rising crime rates in poor African-American communities.

According to the Network, black individuals were still arrested for cocaine at more than twice white persons in 2016. In 2016, black individuals were detained at least every three months more than white Americans for heroin and cocaine charges altogether in twenty-one states (Racial Double Standard in Drug Laws Persists Today, 2019).

Even though heroin and opioid drugs are more dangerous, the Network discovered that in 2016, there were roughly four times as many arrests for cocaine as there were for opioid substances. That year, far more Black people, about 85,640, were arrested for the Crack than white persons (66,120) for heroin and other opiates.

  Lawmakers have accomplished very little to mitigate the fight on drugs’ racially motivated effects. In an interview with Arthur Williams, he said that the blacks were the affected race by the crack epidemic (Racial Double Standard in Drug Laws Persists Today, 2019). They were considered the hotspot of drug trafficking and mostly in Harlem.

In 2010, Congress cut the difference between powdered crack cocaine from 120 to 2 to 24 to 2. Still, experts believe the ratio is unscientific, and the Network discovered that it sustains the double standards for those charged with crack crimes in state court, mainly Black.

Nevertheless, those convicted of misdemeanor drug charges and their families continue to bear the brunt of an unjust system. Drug offenders have been prevented from getting government aid, housing, government scholarships, and even social security benefits at the national level. According to the Network, drug convictions frequently impede people from obtaining stable employment, participating in elections, or staying in good homes

Even hardline Republicans are now advocating for a more compassionate approach to dealing with drug addicts, as evidenced by President Donald Trump’s latest executive order.  Rather than investing in therapy and many other medical interventions in the 1980s, Americans preferred to crackdown on drugs.

Officials believed that the problem would be solved by arresting their path from the crack cocaine issue.  In the end, that strategy had the same negative effect on Black communities that crack had (Glanton, 2017).  Hundreds of Black people have criminal records due to petty drug offenses across the nation, a heritage that remains to lead to the degradation of poor neighborhoods.

War against drugs strategies target minorities in particular while expecting or nursing. In maternity, black women are ten times more likely to be substance checked or denounced to social service agencies. Even before Highest Court overturned this policy, the hospital system in South Carolina randomly drug screened expectant black women and presented positive results to cops, who subsequently arrested them, compelling many of them to deliver shackled before being sent to jail.

Surprisingly, the media and policymakers have now been resoundingly chastised for their racism in response to the crack cocaine epidemic of the 1980s, compared to the current opioid crisis (Sharpton, 2018). These stories regarding drug crises are important as they impact how legislators and campaigners approach finding solutions.

The issue with this opioid theme is that it ignores the large and fast-expanding number of African Americans who are affected by this modern disease. Suppose the same bias that initially labeled African-Americans as offenders fails to recognize us as victims. In that case, it will be a terrible heritage of the bigotry that has long driven the war on drugs. Moreover, excluding black victims from the prevailing narrative risks being excluded from any subsequent legal compensation.

 Black Communities must unite to guarantee that they get the resources they both need and urgently require. The lawsuit filed by New York City is a positive development, but we plan to work with Mayor Bill De Blasio to maintain the matter in state court, where brown or black communities have more power over their fates (Sharpton, 2018).

To that end, a gradual alliance is gathering, including community leaders like myself, delegates from communities demanding reparations, and attorneys who will provide legal assistance to places that the major opioid case may harm.

From the consensus theory point of view, crime occurs when social systems lose control over members. It is linked to Emile Durkheim’s Rationalist viewpoint, which states that when social systems like education, family, and job lose power over society, they successfully overlook the socialization process and experience severe suffer anomie, a condition of normlessness that can cause violent and deviant behavior.

Therefore, weak governance and agents are responsible for the crime (Thompson, 2016). For instance, single-parented households, missing fathers, and unstable homes are criticized for having little influence over the children. According to this idea, youngsters with a record of truancy and isolation are more prone to commit crimes, and long-term jobless people are likewise a concern.

According to Ortiz (2016), scholars used social disorder, defined by weak institutions, to assess and forecast crime patterns in metropolitan settings. Scholars claim that arguments for the social disorganization concept arose from this technique, but the idea lost favor among analysts caused by a lack of empirical investigations.

However, in the 1980s, the theory resurfaced when structural elements such as poverty, diversity, immigration status, racial injustice, and family breakdown were considered, allowing academics to investigate crime trends in vast metropolitan areas.

Consensus Theory is biased since it characterizes dysfunctional families as profoundly damaging. It may even be considered ideological since it condemns the minorities for today’s problems instead of addressing systemic issues. However, the Consensus Theory may be prominent due lone parent households and NEETs are a small minority who are simple to target. Furthermore, because it suits populist language, such a basic idea is easy to accept for the general public.

It is also the type of theory that can be summed up in sound bites and used to sway politicians. To conclude, while this theory may contain some truth, we must be cautious about assuming that a loss of social discipline and poor governance are the primary causes of criminality. It is simply one aspect among the many, and it gives us a very minimal understanding of crime (Thompson, 2016).

Interview

Arthur Williams

A resident of Harlem for 40 years

Question: What drew people in both selling and using Crack?

Crack was a drug that produced a powerful high. Let’s face it, many people both then and now were looking for that kind of forgetfulness. Crack was created with seasoned drug users in mind. Crack was both cheap and convenient. It also doesn’t appear as dangerous as a needle opioid like heroin. As a result, you can see how it fits into the market, hungry for new products.

Question: How did the political and economic environment lead to the rise of Cracks in the 1980s?

Jobs were shifted away from main cities during the 1980s and 1990s, resulting in deindustrialization. It deserted a large number of underprivileged individuals, primarily black inner-city dwellers. Unfortunately, I believe Crack met many people’s requirements during those years.

Jackson Willison

Resident at Harlem for 36years and a Crack addict

Question: How did you get into crack addiction?

Crack addiction developed much more quickly and easily than powder cocaine addiction. I have been in and out of Crack for 28 years, with the last eight years being quite heavy. Honestly, Crack is not a substance for beginners. In the early 1990s, when Crack was cheap and widely available on the street, I began purchasing it. Almost all of my street boys prefer to deal with the needle game, such as heroin; that’s not me.