Presentation for class

1. The War on Drugs
Julio Anzaldo

2. Thesis:
The War on Drugs has become synonymous with racial
profiling and mass incarceration because of its failed
attempt to tackle drug use in America, causing thousands
of people like Jimmy Santiago Baca to be incarcerated due
to non-violent drug offences.

3. Findings:
An estimated 46.3 percent of all
prisoners are in prison for
nonviolent related drug offences.
Like Baca, 46.3 percent of the
prison population is behind bars
for drug trafficking. With more than
a third (35%) of drug offenders
having no or minimal criminal
history. Baca served 5 years in
prison in 1973. As of 2012, the
average jail time for nonviolent
drug offences became 11 years.

4. Findings (Continued):
By 2000, according to Sentencing
Project data, African Americans and
Latinos represented three-fourths
of all drug offenders in state
prisons, even though whites
constituted a large majority of
illegal drug users and dealers in the
United States.
Police agencies have frequently
targeted drug law violations in low-
income communities of color for
enforcement operations, while
substance abuse in communities
with substantial resources is more
likely to be addressed as a family or
public health problem.

5. Findings (Continued):
Aristotle's theories of happiness
and friendships apply directly to
the expectations set in the prison
system.
For example, when Baca was
released from prison, he slightly
missed being able to write to his
heart's content with little to no
disturbances. Which supports
Aristotle’s claims that “the self-
sufficient we now define as that
which when isolated makes life
desirable and lacking in nothing;
and such we think happiness to be”
(Aristotle 83).

6. Works Cited:
Kilgore, James. Labor Studies Journal. Dec 2012, Vol. 37 Issue 4, pg. 356 - 372. 17p.
Baca, Jimmy S. A Place to Stand: The Making of a Poet. New York: Grove Press, 2001. Print.
The Changing Racial Dynamics of the War on Drugs (Washington, 2009), http://www
.sentencingproject.org/doc/dp_raceanddrugs.pdf.
Taxy, Sam, Julie Samuels, and William Adams. "Drug offenders in federal prison: Estimates of
characteristics based on linked data." US Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics (2015).
Aristotle. “From Nicomachean Ethics”. Pursuing Happiness: A Bedford Spotlight Reader. By, Matthew
Parfitt, Dawn Skorczewski. Bedford/St. Martins, 2016. Pg. 82 - 87.