A kinder, gentler drug war? Race, drugs, and punishment in 21st century America

Abstract

This article assesses whether the kinder, gentler rhetoric through which the disproportionately white opiate crisis has been framed has been accompanied by changes in drug sentencing policy and drug law enforcement that mirror this sympathetic discourse. Toward these ends, state-level drug sentencing policies enacted from 2010 to 2016 as well as recent trends in drug law enforcement and drug-related imprisonment are analyzed. The legislative findings show that policymakers are not singling out opiate violations for particularly lenient treatment. Instead, it is the user/dealer distinction that animates recent shifts in drug policy: While state lawmakers are re-thinking their approach to drug possession, they are more likely to have enhanced penalties for drug distribution than to have reduced them. In addition, although significant racial disparities in arrests and incarceration persist, the main change that has occurred is a decline in the black share of arrests and imprisonments. The discussion explores possible explanations for these unexpected findings, including the possibility that political dynamics help explain the decline of the drug war in many urban areas and, as a result, the diminution of racial disparities in it.