Essay on Prisons and the War on Drugs
The video War on Drugs Dramatically Increases Prison Population discusses the social and financial costs of the War on Drugs, including the costs of criminal justice, increased budget, reduced resources for providing the proper social services, etc. (University of Notre Dame, 1999; Korgen & Furst, 2012). As the issue of drug abuse has been identified as an important social problem, it is necessary to explore the consequences of our reliance on punishment as a solution to drug abuse. There are certain differences between a culture’s folkways, mores, and taboos. A folkway can be defined as a norm for human behavior that should be followed for the sake of convenience or the established tradition. A more can be defined as a strict norm that is based on morality, which helps to differentiate what is right and what is wrong. A taboo is the strictest norm in society that can bring the most severe sanctions. Some of these notions are considered to be infractions of normative expectations termed criminal and others social. This definitional process leads us to incarcerate fellow citizens based on the established laws and regulations regarding drug abuse. There are several sociological factors that contribute to the criminalization of individuals in society, including racial prejudice, illegal immigration, unemployment, poor education of immigrants, mental health problems, etc. Criminalization is based on the application of certain laws to certain behaviors of individuals. Today all types of deviant behaviors are known as criminal. The deviance caused by drug abuse requires social control. Drug users are considered to be mentally ill people, or the people with serious forms of neurotic personality. Although the action of a drug user is criminal, he/she need therapeutic assistance. The seriousness of drug abuse justifies our reliance on the social consequences of incarceration. Due to the stricter policies aimed at reducing drug abuse rate; there are many prisoners who were involved in trafficking illegal drugs and who were incarcerated based on the established laws and regulations. Prisons should not only punish prisoners, but also rehabilitate them. Undoubtedly, incarceration would have a strong impact on our society and future generation. The current state of prisons in the U.S. should be reconsidered.
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