The War on Drugs, the Politics of Crime, and Mass Incarceration in the United States
![handle is hein.journals/jgrj15 and id is 319 raw text is: The War on Drugs, the Politics of Crime,
and Mass Incarceration in the United States
Heather Schoenfeld*
I. INTRODUCTION
In November 2010, California voters narrowly defeated a ballot
initiative to legalize the possession and sale of up to an ounce of marijuana.'
Support for the initiative reflected both a shift in public attitudes about drug
use2 and the reality of the largest recession since the Great Depression.3
After signing a previous bill into law that decriminalized the possession of
small quantities of marijuana, Republican California Governor Arnold
Schwarzenegger stated, [I]n this time of drastic budget cuts, prosecutors,
defense attorneys, law enforcement and the courts cannot afford to expend
limited resources prosecuting a crime that carries the same punishment as a
traffic ticket.4 Another Republican, Newt Gingrich, recently called on
conservatives to address the astronomical growth in the prison population,
with its huge costs in dollars and lost human potential.' Citing a price tag of
$68 billion (300 percent more than 25 years ago) and recidivism rates
above 50%, Gingrich and the Right on Crime initiative6 advocate punishing
* Assistant Professor of Sociology, The Ohio State University. The author would like to thank The
Journal of Gender, Race & Justice for the invitation to participate in its symposium and the editors
for their helpful comments. The National Science Foundation provided support for this research.
1. See MARK BALDASSARE ET AL., PUB. POLICY INST. OF CAL., CALIFORNIANS & THEIR
GOVERNMENT 4 (2010), available at http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/survey/S_1210MBS.pdf.
2. See Elizabeth Mendes, New High of 46% of Americans Support Legalizing Marituana,
GALLUP (Oct. 28, 2010), http://www.gallup.com/poll/144086/New-High-Americans-Support
Legalizing-Marijuana.aspx (showing that between the early 1980s and 1995, only 25% of Gallup
poll respondents thought marijuana should be legal, compared to 46% in 2010).
3. See BALDASSARE ET AL., supra note I (finding that among those who voted for the
initiative, 29% cited the potential revenue produced by taxing the sale of marijuana).
4. Patrick McGreevy, Law Makes Pot Minor Offense, L.A. TIMES, Oct. 2, 2010, available at
2010 WLNR 19567758.
5. Newt Gingrich & Pat Nolan, Op-Ed., Prison Reform: A Smart Way for States To Save
Money and Lives, WASH. POST, Jan. 7, 2011, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/
article/2011/01/06/AR2011010604386.html.
6. See About, RIGHT ON CRIME, http://www.rightoncrime.com/about (last visited Mar. 20,
2012) (explaining that Right on Crime is the one-stop source for conservative ideas on criminal](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/jgrj15&div=17&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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The War on Drugs, the Politics of Crime, and Mass Incarceration in the United States
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