We, the public, are led to believe that crime is all around us, rampant and ever increasing. It is intentionally placed in our line of sight on a daily basis where we are bombarded with it through various forms of media; from TV, Radio, Newspapers, and online ads and headlines, it is impossible to avoid. This seed of fear is planted in our minds, and then watered with sensational crime stories to promote its growth until we accept what we are being fed without question. We are told that our prisons are overcrowded, that something needs to be done and that more prisons need to be built to house the additional offenders. Maybe we need to look at fixing the overcrowding from a proactive point of view instead of reactive. What type of criminals
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The people engaging in personal drug use are only harming themselves, similar to alcohol and smoking cigarettes, so why are we pursuing this so heavily? In relation to this, the drug usage is likely symptomatic of other problems that have led people to turn to the use of drugs as a coping mechanism. These problems can stem from racial or systemic barriers including poverty. Where and why did the war on drugs begin, and is it actually doing anything to reduce drug related crime and addiction to these drugs, as it was intended? That is, is pursuing and incarcerating these drug users solving a crime problem or exacerbating it? The research and the results that are visible in society, indicate the war on crime is failing, horribly. It is doing the opposite that it intends, and is instead making crime worse (we have seen a drastic increase in usage and convictions for these charges) and in the process the effects are seeping into other areas of society, like prisons and social services, taking away resources that would serve a much better purpose for other …show more content…
It has been stated that the cost of the war on drugs in the US has exceeded 1 trillion dollars since aggressive enforcement began, and in Canada Vago (2015) states approximately $500 million is spent each year by federal agencies just to fight the drugs, this figure does not include costs of incarceration of offenders or other institutional costs in relation to drug crime. If you look at the costs of incarcerating drug offenders, the government of Canada website states that at any given time in 2013/2014 there were approximately 139,337 adult offenders serving time in provincial or federal correctional services and that the operating expenditures for correctional services for that same time period was $4.6 billion. If Canada’s ratio of drug offenders is similar to that of the states (as previously mentioned 52% of the federal prison population in the US in 2012’s primary offence was drug related), that puts it at 2.4 billion dollars in incarceration costs for drug offenders, per year. These are certainly rough numbers but based on a country very similar in many ways to Canada. That is an enormous amount of money to spend incarcerating these people, and for what? What do we expect to gain from sentencing these individuals to
The people engaging in personal drug use are only harming themselves, similar to alcohol and smoking cigarettes, so why are we pursuing this so heavily? In relation to this, the drug usage is likely symptomatic of other problems that have led people to turn to the use of drugs as a coping mechanism. These problems can stem from racial or systemic barriers including poverty. Where and why did the war on drugs begin, and is it actually doing anything to reduce drug related crime and addiction to these drugs, as it was intended? That is, is pursuing and incarcerating these drug users solving a crime problem or exacerbating it? The research and the results that are visible in society, indicate the war on crime is failing, horribly. It is doing the opposite that it intends, and is instead making crime worse (we have seen a drastic increase in usage and convictions for these charges) and in the process the effects are seeping into other areas of society, like prisons and social services, taking away resources that would serve a much better purpose for other …show more content…
It has been stated that the cost of the war on drugs in the US has exceeded 1 trillion dollars since aggressive enforcement began, and in Canada Vago (2015) states approximately $500 million is spent each year by federal agencies just to fight the drugs, this figure does not include costs of incarceration of offenders or other institutional costs in relation to drug crime. If you look at the costs of incarcerating drug offenders, the government of Canada website states that at any given time in 2013/2014 there were approximately 139,337 adult offenders serving time in provincial or federal correctional services and that the operating expenditures for correctional services for that same time period was $4.6 billion. If Canada’s ratio of drug offenders is similar to that of the states (as previously mentioned 52% of the federal prison population in the US in 2012’s primary offence was drug related), that puts it at 2.4 billion dollars in incarceration costs for drug offenders, per year. These are certainly rough numbers but based on a country very similar in many ways to Canada. That is an enormous amount of money to spend incarcerating these people, and for what? What do we expect to gain from sentencing these individuals to