Securing White Votes by Incarcerating Black Bodies: The Criminalization of Blackness and the Perpetuation of a National Moral Panic in the American Carceral State

Dylan Tureff

Abstract:  Tough on crime policies, which promote the racialized mass incarceration of Black and Brown persons, have become a norm in American political campaigns and presidential administrations. These policies, in large part, are responsible for establishing the United States as a carceral state. This paper analyzes the sociopolitical narratives used by and the motivations of Presidents Nixon and Reagan to justify and promote the two paramount laws that radically expanded the racialized carceral apparatus in America: the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 (CDAPAC) and the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 (ADAA). To do so, this paper examines the seemingly race-neutral texts of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 and the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, as well as the racially charged rhetoric used by Presidents Nixon and Reagan during their respective campaigns and administrations. Using the framework of Critical Race Theory, this paper evaluates the concepts of “Black criminality” and “moral panic” as sociopolitical forces responsible for the American polity’s acceptance and support for tough on crime policies. Concluding, this paper contends that Presidents Nixon and Reagan, in addition to Presidents H.W. Bush, Clinton, and Trump, exploited and expanded the narrative of Black criminality and the national moral panic of Black crime to justify and garner electoral support through tough on crime policies that disproportionately incarcerated Black Americans, establishing the criminal justice system as a sociopolitical instrument.

I. Introduction

Trayvon Martin was an unarmed 17-year-old boy walking home from the convenience store while visiting relatives in Florida when he was fatally shot based on nothing but the color of his skin (Bendix 2017). As a student of the Krop High School and the George T. Baker Aviation School with aspirations to work with airplanes, Martin was a year and a half away from continuing his aeronautics studies in college (Hauser 2017). George Zimmerman, a community watch coordinator in Florida, stripped away those dreams when he shot and killed the unarmed and unthreatening Martin. Zimmerman was then acquitted of all charges under Florida’s “Stand Your Ground Laws” in 2013. Just as racial bias motivated Zimmerman’s trigger finger, it also carries weight on the swinging gavels of the American criminal justice system. Martin’s Blackness dictated his life in the U.S.; if he had not been murdered due to the color of his skin, he was statistically more likely to be behind bars than in the university classroom in which he yearned to sit (Justice Policy Institute 2012).

This paper analyzes the legislative and sociopolitical foundations of America’s racialized mass incarceration system, which will statistically imprison one in three Black boys born today, compared to merely one in 17 of their white counterparts (ACLU, n.d.). Specifically, this paper will examine the sociopolitical narratives used by Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan to justify and promote the two paramount laws that radically expanded the racialized carceral apparatus in the U.S.: the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 (CDAPAC) and the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 (ADAA). In doing so, I dissect the seemingly race-neutral texts of the aforementioned federal acts, as well as the racially charged rhetoric used by Presidents Nixon and Reagan during their respective campaigns and administrations. Using the framework of Critical Race Theory, this paper then evaluates the concepts of “Black criminality” and “moral panic” as sociopolitical forces responsible for the American people’s acceptance of and support for tough on crime policies. In conclusion, this paper contends that Presidents Nixon and Reagan, in addition to Presidents H.W. Bush, Clinton, and Trump, exploited and expanded the narrative of Black criminality and the national moral panic of Black crime to justify and garner electoral support through tough on crime policies that disproportionately incarcerated Black Americans, establishing the criminal justice system as a sociopolitical instrument.

The Formation of a Racialized Carceral State

It is because of the mass incarceration of Black Americans that we define the U.S. as a carceral state: a nation partially characterized by the incarceration of its residents within an expansive, institutionalized prison system (Simon 2007, 417). Currently, the U.S. is home to 21% of the world’s prisoners despite comprising merely 5% of the world’s population (NAACP, n.d.). A higher proportion of adults are incarcerated in the U.S. than anywhere else in the world, with the U.S. exhibiting incarceration rates of between five and 12 times the rates in Western European countries and Japan (Ibid.). Between 1980 and 2015, “the number of people incarcerated in America increased from roughly 500,000 to over 2.2 million” (Ibid.), a scope unprecedented in Western countries and U.S. history (Gottschalk 2006, 1). Incarceration has been established as the primary response to any form of legal disobedience in the U.S., which traditionally rejects the vast majority of restorative and rehabilitative practices. Distinguished by unparalleled prison and jail populations, the persistence of the death penalty, degrading sanctions, and punitive sentences for nonviolent crimes, the United States stands alone as the world’s largest carceral state (Ibid.).

More specifically, the U.S. carceral state was built on the oppression and exploitation of communities of color , in which criminal justice institutions are among the last public institutions functionally standing (Simon 2007, 471). Black people make up less than 13% of the U.S. population (Gottschalk 2006, 2), but they comprise more than 40% of the incarcerated population (Sawyer and Wagner 2019). As a result, Black Americans are incarcerated at a rate that is 5.9 times higher than the rate at which white Americans are incarcerated (The Sentencing Project 2018). Not only are they more likely to be arrested, but they are also more likely to be convicted and given lengthier prison sentences than their white counterparts (Ibid.). This disparity has developed due to practices within the criminal justice system that adversely affect communities of color, such as, but not limited to: over-policing, pretrial detention, sentencing, and collateral consequences (Ibid.).

In 2016, Black Americans made up 27% of all arrests in the U.S., which is double their respective percentage of the American population (Ibid.). The disparity is even larger amongst Black youth (Ibid.). These statistics do not illustrate a vexed, causative bond between race and crime, but rather practices of over-policing, systematic racial bias, and the linkage of race to urban poverty in America. Over-policing describes the disproportionately excessive levels of police contact within Black communities compared to their white counterparts. Cities around the world statistically have higher crime rates than rural or suburban areas, regardless of racial demographics (Glaeser and Sacerdote 1996, 2). However, American law enforcement exponentially over-polices poor, urban communities where Black Americans are more likely to reside than white Americans due to current and historical housing segregation and economic inequality (Ibid.). While high-crime areas are logical spaces for police officers and departments to patrol, the levels of policing within urban communities of color far outweigh their elevated crime rates (Wilson 1975, 148). In turn, the increased policing itself further amplifies crime rates within traditionally marginalized communities disproportionately in comparison to those of other areas. For example, when stopped, Black drivers are three times more likely to be searched than white drivers (The Sentencing Project 2018), which consequently produces higher arrest rates for Black drivers than their white counterparts.

Over-policing of minority communities occurs for multiple reasons. First and foremost, racial bias – epitomized by the narrative of Black criminality and national moral panic – and the way American jurisprudence has responded to bias drive the practice. In Whren v. United States (1996), the Supreme Court held that the subjective motivations and biases of police officers are constitutionally irrelevant to analyzing the “reasonableness” of policing practices (517 U.S. 806, 813(1996)). As a result, the court has allowed racial bias to influence policing as long as probable cause or reasonable suspicion is met. Furthermore, in Adams v. Williams (1972), the Supreme Court qualified the concept? of a “high-crime area” as a contributing factor for legal reasonable suspicion (407 U.S. 143, 144, 147 (1972)). Justice William Rehnquist never expressly defined a “high-crime area” in his majority opinion (Ibid.); however, lower courts throughout the nation quickly took instruction from Adams, recognizing poor, urban communities as “high-crime areas” (Shirazi 2016, 77). Therefore, the legal standard of reasonable suspicion was relaxed within urban communities of color, establishing different and unequal standards of policing between many communities of color and white communities (Ibid.). The implicit presence of racial bias in policing, in large part, explains the discrepancy in arrest and crime rates based on race. For example, while marijuana use rates are generally consistent across race and ethnicity in the U.S., Black people were four times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than whites in 2010 (ACLU, n.d.). Similarly, white people “account for roughly 82% of drug users in the country, [and] Blacks account for about 17%” (Shirazi 2016, 82). However, the imprisonment rate of Black Americans for drug charges is six times higher than that of white Americans (NAACP, n.d.), and 37% of all those arrested for drug use in the U.S. are Black (Shirazi 2016, 87).

Moreover, Black Americans are substantially (3.5 times) more likely to be held in pretrial detention than white Americans regardless of the alleged crime involved, illustrating racial disparities in pretrial treatment and access to freedom (Hartney and Vuong 2009). This statistic is even more staggering considering over two-thirds of people in U.S. jails in 2016 were being detained prior to trial (The Sentencing Project 2018). Individuals are detained prior to trial via a multitude of means, but the most common method is through monetary bonds. With 70% of pretrial releases requiring monetary bail, Black Americans are more likely to be denied bail, have a higher bond set, and be unable to pay the set cost of pretrial release than white Americans due to their lower median annual pre-incarceration incomes (Rabuy and Kopf 2016).

Furthermore, racial disparities in sentencing can also be seen in the federal judicial system as Black males are sentenced to nearly 20% longer sentences than white males convicted of the same or similar crimes (Sentencing Commission 2017). Moreover, Black Americans are more likely to be both charged with higher-level crimes, via prosecutorial discretion, and subsequently convicted of said crimes than their white peers who commit similar crimes (Ibid.). This reality is epitomized by the disparity in life without parole sentences for nonviolent offenses. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, 65.4% of prisoners serving such sentences for nonviolent crimes are Black (Ibid). That discrepancy is even larger numbers in some states, such as Louisiana, where 91.4% of prisoners serving life without parole sentences for nonviolent crimes are Black (Ibid.).

Lastly, Black Americans are substantially more likely to be victims of collateral consequences associated with a criminal record and reoffending. In 2010, only 8% of adults in America had a recorded felony conviction, but that rate was 33% among Black men (Ibid.). Convicted felons face numerous barriers to living a positive and contributive life in society, such as difficulties in obtaining employment, housing, access to loans, and the right to vote. When coupling said barriers to reentry with over-policing and biased pretrial practices, Black Americans are more likely to be rearrested and reconvicted for future crimes following release than previously incarcerated white Americans, disproportionately exposing them to criminal charges and sentences that build with repeated offenses, such as three-strikes laws. 

In addition to the practices within the criminal justice system discussed above, federal and state legislation of the 1970s and 1980s are largely responsible for both the traumatic growth of the American carceral system and its racial disparities. This paper will analyze the two federal laws that are the preeminent causes of the unparalleled growth and scope of the American criminal justice apparatus: President Nixon’s Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 and President Reagan’s Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986. These two laws not only fundamentally created the legal basis for the nation’s federal “War on Drugs,” but they also exponentially increased the size and severity of the American carceral system via increased funding, law enforcement employment, drug laws, and drug sentencing. As a result, these acts directly led to a historically unmatched growth in the incarceration of Americans of color. In turn, each law and their accompanied political rhetoric further established the racialized American carceral state, which could then be used as a sociopolitical and electoral instrument to garner votes.

Nixon’s Public Enemy and Wartime Votes

In June of 1971, President Richard Nixon declared a national War on Drugs, depicting drug use, users, and dealers as America’s “public enemy number one” during a televised congressional speech (Nixon 1971). Nixon and his recently appointed drug authority planned to wage “a new, all-out offensive” by targeting and imprisoning drug dealers and users (Ibid.). The policy cornerstone of Nixon’s war was the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 (CDAPCA). Signed into law one month before Nixon’s historic “public enemy” speech, the Act epitomized Nixon’s and Congress’s efforts to attack drug use via the criminal justice system. CDAPCA consists of two main parts, each fundamental to its impact: Title II: The Controlled Substances Act (CSA) and Title III: Importation and Exportation, Criminal Forfeiture, and Drug Law Amendments. While Title III changed the law and penalties regarding importation and exportation of controlled substances across state lines and international boarders, Title II  provides the legal foundation for the federal government’s punitive war against drug users and dealers.

Specifically, the CSA (Title II) created the drug scheduling system that we still use today. It classifies drugs into five categories based on a multitude of factors: the relative potential for abuse, scientific evidence of its pharmacological effect, scientific knowledge regarding the drug, its history and pattern of abuse, and what, if any, risk there is to the public health (CSA 1970). The scheduling classification labels Schedule I drugs the most dangerous and most worthy of prosecution. These include heroin, LSD, ecstasy, peyote, and marijuana (Ibid.). In addition to classification, Part D of the CSA specifies fine amounts, durations of prison sentences, and other punitive measures for violations within each schedule (Ibid.). To accomplish this effort, the CSA increased the size and presence of federal drug control agencies, law enforcement agencies, and police departments throughout the nation. The CSA, as the backbone of Nixon’s War on Drugs, shaped the way the federal government, and in turn, the American public would see drugs, punitive enforcement, and incarceration for decades. This legislation spearheaded the incarceration of millions of American drug users and dealers, many of whom were convicted solely of nonviolent crimes. As a result, the CSA cultivated an age of mass incarceration that increased the U.S. prison population from 357,292 in 1970 to over 2.4 million incarcerated persons in 2014, a 500% spike in just 40 years (ACLU, n.d.). This statistic becomes even more sobering when combined with the reality that crime rates themselves remained largely unchanged between the 1970s and 1990s Pew Research Center, n.d.). Subsequently, crime rates have steadily dropped since the 1990s, while the incarcerated population has steadily increased (Stemem 2017). Moreover, the decrease in crime rates over the last three decades has proven to be the result of increased wages, employment, education rates, a strengthened economy, and an aging population, rather than of mass incarceration (Ibid.).

To garner bipartisan support, Nixon instituted his War on Drugs and capitalized on the abundant public support for stricter crime-deterring methods by promising to keep Americans safe from dangerous drug dealers and users (Newel 2013). While the administration framed this effort in seemingly race-neutral terms, John Ehrlichman, the former chief domestic policy advisor to President Nixon, reportedly stated that the Nixon campaign and White House “had two enemies: the antiwar left and Black people” (Equal Justice Initiative 2016). He infamously added: “we knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the [Vietnam] War or Black but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and Blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt their communities” (Ibid.). By framing the incarceration of mainly African American drug offenders as a racially neutral effort to fight crime, Nixon justified his racially motivated policies by exploiting white Americans’ perceptions that their children were at risk. Subsequent parts of this paper will specifically illustrate, at length, how the War on Drugs and its modern-day repercussions target Black individuals and people of color.

Reagan’s Expansion: The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986

A decade after the CSA, President Ronald Reagan’s Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 (ADAA) furthered the efforts of the CDAPCA and Nixon’s War on Drugs, and in turn, exponentially expanded racialized mass incarceration in America. Signed into law in October of 1986, the ADAA of 1986 transforms the federal response to drug use into an entirely punitive system by defunding rehabilitative treatment and imposing mandatory minimum sentences for the possession and distribution of controlled substances (ADAA 1986). The Act creates three levels of penalties for drug use and distribution violations: “(i) penalties involving 10-year or greater mandatory jail terms, (ii) penalties involving 5-year or greater mandatory jail terms, and (iii) penalties involving primarily non-mandatory jail terms” (Ibid.). By establishing mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes, the ADAA dramatically increases the length and number of sentences for drug crimes in the federal system by taking discretion away from judges and forcing mitigating factors to go unconsidered. 

Moreover, Subtitle I of the ADAA, titled “Armed Career Criminals,” legally equates drug use and distribution with violent crime. Specifically, it expands the mandatory minimum sentence to at least 15 years of imprisonment for “armed career criminals” – those who have been convicted of three “violent felony” or “serious drug” offenses prior to receiving a federal weapons charge (Ibid.). Therefore, nonviolent “serious drug offenses” can be legally treated as violent crimes if those drug offenses are associated or coupled with a weapons charge, as a result of collateral consequences. Collateral consequences are laws that compound imprisonment lengths and categorized crime severity as a result of a defendant’s prior convictions. As a result, this act, and these collateral policies, substantially increase the length of drug-related sentences throughout the nation and especially within communities more victimized by violence.

Understood as the two preeminent legislation policies to the creation of the American mass incarceration system, mandatory minimums and collateral sentences are largely responsible for the disproportionate incarceration of Black Americans and exacerbate the racial disparity in American prisons. The United States Sentencing Commission released a 1991 Report under the supervision of Congress, in which it stated:

“the disparate application of mandatory minimum sentences in cases in which available data strongly suggest that a mandatory minimum is applicable appears to be related to the race of the defendant, where whites are more likely than non-whites to be sentenced below the applicable mandatory minimum” (United States Sentencing Report 1991).

The Commission found that, in all convictions, 54% of white defendants and 67.7% of Black defendants were sentenced at the mandatory minimum (Mauer 2010). However, mandatory minimum sentences produce even larger racial disparities when applied to drug offenses, as set forth in the ADAA of 1986, due to the extreme disparities in arrests and convictions (Ibid.). Additionally, the ADAA establishes collateral consequences that further impact Black Americans because defendants of color are more likely to have a prior record than white defendants due to disproportionate policing, prosecution, and processing (Ibid.). This affirms that the principal federal policies that created the racialized American carceral state are based in the ADAA of 1986.

As previously stated, the CDAPCA of 1970 and the ADAA of 1986 specifically, and the American mass incarceration system more generally, were established via seemingly race-neutral terms and legislation. This protected the reputation and objectivity of the penal system and the individuals involved while still harming and incarcerating Black communities. To better understand and combat these racialized practices and institutions touted as “race-neutral,” one must understand the numerous ways through which racism manifests itself in the American sociopolitical climate. One way to do so is by examining Critical Race Theory.

II. Critical Race Theory: An Intellectual Framework for Understanding Missing Word?

Critical Race Theory is an essential tool used to analyze the elaborate social, legal, and political disposition of American racism and race relations. As defined by Kimberlé Crenshaw, a founder of the scholarship, Critical Race Theory is an intellectual framework that recognizes that racial discrimination is not limited to blatant, individual acts of racial prejudice, but that it is engrained in American institutions and law (Crenshaw et al. 1995, xiv). Critical Race Theory “holds that racism is endemic to, rather than a deviation from, American norms,” and is perpetrated by constant and deep-rooted implicit bias and systemic racism (Moschel 2014, 41). As further noted by Crenshaw et al. (1995), Critical Race Theory illustrates that white supremacy and the oppression of people of color have been established and protected by the relationship between the law and the public. To that end, this theory posits that to change this marriage between law and racial oppression (Ibid.), the American people must be race-conscious and recognize the various and often subtle ways through which the legal oppression of people of color is maintained and furthered throughout the country (Carbado and Gulati 2003, 1757). Insofar as courts and legislatures do not acknowledge the role of race in their decisions or policies, a mask of race-neutrality covers the pervasive racial bias and attempted social control (Lee 1994).

It is through the lens of this conceptual framework that we see that the seemingly race-neutral ‘tough on crime’ policies are built on the foundation of and enforce the concept of a racial hierarchy, propagating structural racism within the law. Structural racism serves as the institutional means through which society furthers white privilege and marginalizes non-whites. Because our legal system has historically oppressed people of color, especially Black people, textually race-neutral (or colorblind) laws cannot mitigate racial inequalities because these forms of discrimination are intrinsically embedded into the legal structure itself (Ibid.). These laws not only perpetuate the unjust status quo, but they also exacerbate racial inequalities because they are executed within the context of racially biased institutions and practices: the over-policing of Black communities (Canella 2018, 379), the racialized police enforcement and sentencing of criminal laws, and the school-to-prison pipeline (Barnes and Motz 2018), among other institutional factors that criminalize Black people in the U.S.

The CDAPCA As Seen Through Critical Race Theory

As demonstrated above, the CDAPCA of 1970 and the ADAA of 1986 disproportionately incarcerate and impact Black Americans. However, they do so without mentioning race in their texts and instead characterize any racial disparities as an unintentional consequence rather than a premeditated effort. Yet, through Critical Race Theory, we can understand the full extent to which these laws and “tough on crime” policies target Black Americans as well as understand the systematic racism that plagues our nation’s institutions.

In “The New Jim Crow,” Alexander (2012) demonstrates that the U.S. today is said to be in an era of colorblindness. In a century that saw the presidency of a Black man, many Americans believe that we, as a nation, have entered an era in which race does not matter, that we “triumph[ed] over the racial caste system” (Alexander 2012, 2). However, Rector-Aranda (2016) posits that racism in today’s America “is not only constituted by the occasional offenses of bigots and extremists, it is also embodied in everyday practices and behaviors that have situated and maintained white supremacy for hundreds of years so as to make it invisible and instinctive.” Racism is ubiquitous in the veins of our nation’s institutions. This reality explains the relationship between race, racism, and power in America and the American sociopolitical legal apparatus.

By coupling the punitive scheduling of illegal substances with increased funding and the presence of federal police and prosecutorial powers, the CSA had a dramatic effect on the national Black community (Crawley 2011). In many ways, it single-handedly transformed the federal prosecution of drug crimes. In the 1970s, there was a nationwide increase in drug importation into the United States (ACLU 2013). However, under the CSA, the police and prosecutorial efforts focused on poor, urban communities that had high concentrations of Black Americans, the same communities that have always been targeted by much of this nation’s police efforts. For example, 52% of all drug arrests in the United States in 2010 were marijuana possession-related, and for such crimes, Blacks were 4 times more likely to be arrested than white people, with some areas, such as Iowa and the District of Columbia, having arrest disparities of over 8 times (Ibid.). Meanwhile, usage rates among white and Black Americans were approximately equivalent, with around 10% of their respective populations using the drug (Ibid.). As clearly illustrated, the CSA’s classification of marijuana as a Schedule I drug does not equally impact all of the drug’s users, but rather those the police arrest and the nation prosecutes for marijuana-related drugs: primarily people of color.

The classification of marijuana in the Controlled Substances Act also disproportionately impacts Black Americans due to the racialized historical narrative of marijuana in America. As a result of trade routes from Mexico, America’s initial introduction to marijuana occurred primarily in the early 20th century in New Orleans (Fossier 1931, 247-252), a city characterized by racial diversity and jazz music, a majority-Black art form. Consequently, from its entry point into the country, marijuana was tied to the Black community. As jazz music grew in popularity, it served as a catalyst for biracial interactions in music clubs throughout cities. White Americans resistant to racial integration touted fears of intermarriage and sexual relations between Black men and white women (Finkelman 2013, 1742). Individuals seeking positions of power played upon those concerns and used marijuana to vilify Black Americans and prevent racial intermingling by characterizing Black men as predators using the drug to seduce white women (Ibid.). Harry Anslinger,  the first commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and the architect of marijuana criminalization, created a race-based national campaign for marijuana prohibition. Subsequently, countless jazz musicians and Black men, including Louis Armstrong, were arrested and incarcerated for marijuana use after the swift criminalization of marijuana throughout the 1920s (Gundy and Staunton 2017, 163).

Ansingler, a known and outward racist working through the Bureau of Narcotics, transformed the public perception and legal classification of marijuana from a low-grade nuisance to an abominable drug as dangerous as heroin (Chasin 2016, 17). He funded medical reports and published news articles that falsely claimed marijuana caused “insanity, criminality, and death” (Tucker 2012, 248). Moreover, Anslinger stated that “reefer makes darkies think they’re as good as white men” and that “the primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerate races” (Ibid.). The historical narrative of marijuana usage in the United States as a Black-used substance has led to the over-policing of Black individuals for drug crimes. The CSA then served as a mechanism to continue and exponentially further that racist practice and its punitive consequences. Consequently, it is not the text of the CDAPCA that creates disproportionate incarceration of Black Americans, rather it is its production of new, harsher punitive penalties and expanded federal police powers in an already biased legal system that expands racialized mass incarceration and perpetuates racialized crime narratives.

The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 As Seen Through Critical Race Theory

While the racialization of the ADAA of 1986 is more visible within the under-weavings of race-neutral text when compared to that of the CDAPCA, the detrimental impact of the ADAA still lies primarily in its execution rather than its text. Although the express language of the ADAA of 1986 seems race-neutral, it specifically and tangibly targets Black people. First, under the mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines, Congress instituted substantially higher mandatory minimum sentences for crack cocaine offenses than for powder cocaine: distribution of just five grams of crack carried a minimum five-year federal prison sentence, while distribution of 500 grams of powder cocaine carried the same sentence. This meant establishing a 100 to one ratio sentencing disparity between two forms of the same drug (Vagins and McCurdy 2006). Crack and powder cocaine are not only comprised of the same chemical formula, but according to the U.S. Sentencing Commission, they also generally cause the same physiological reaction in their users (Ibid.). This arbitrary sentencing disparity targeted Black Americans due to the higher prevalence of crack cocaine in the poor, urban communities in which many Black Americans live. Conversely, powder cocaine is exponentially more expensive, and thus, it is statistically used more frequently by more affluent white Americans (Ibid.). The immense disparity in the prosecution and punishment of crack and powder cocaine, as written in the ADAA,  is not based in medical research but in racial bias. Specifically, over 80% of those convicted for crack offenses in America are Black, despite the fact that more than 66% of crack users are white and Hispanic (Ibid.).

Furthermore, the ADAA of 1986 exacerbated the disproportionate incarceration of Black Americans through implementing increased mandatory collateral consequences. Collateral consequences are legal mandates that increase sentences for crime based on one’s history and record in the criminal justice system; simply, prior convictions dictate increased sentences in the future. As a result of the racially disparate policing, arrests, convictions, and sentencing of Black versus white Americans in the criminal justice system, collateral consequences unequally impact Black individuals. The disproportionate impact of collateral consequences is shown by a 2004 study in California, which found that under the state’s three-strikes collateral laws, Black Americans made up only 6.5% of the overall population but 30% of the prison population, 36% of second strikers, and 45% of third strikers (Ehlers et al. 2004, 2). While the percentage of Black Americans given longer sentences increased based on the incarcerated person’s number of “strikes,” it decreased for their white peers. White Americans made up 47% of the state’s population but only 29% of the state’s prison population, 26% of second strikers, and 25% of the state’s third strikers (Ibid.).

However, crime rates do not differ based on race with each increased “strike” (Ibid.). Rather, the discrepancy lies in the difference between the ways Black and white Americans are treated through each step of the criminal justice system. As shown by Figure 1 below, Black people are arrested at higher rates than whites in the state of California, and racial disparity increases when they move through each step of the state’s collateral consequences law. Specifically, following arrest, Black Americans are more likely to be incarcerated, and following completed sentencing, they are more likely to be charged via the collateral consequences law. Meanwhile, white Americans are incarcerated far less per arrest and are less likely to be incarcerated subsequently for future crimes under the three-strikes law. This statistical inverse between Black and white Americans as they proceed through the criminal justice system is more clearly illustrated in figure 2.

Figure 1: Race/Ethnicity of California’s Population, Felony Arrests, Prison Population, and Strikers

Figure 2: California’s Population, Felony Arrests, Prison Population, and Strikers, by Race/Ethnicity

Collateral consequences are worsened by the already present racial disparities and inequalities within the criminal justice system, rendering a cycle of mass Black incarceration. By implementing collateral consequences, the criminal justice system doubles down on racial bias, compounding punishments exponentially throughout the process.  Critical Race Theory illustrates that, while the CDAPCA of 1970 and the ADAA of 1986 do not use explicit language of race, they target Black Americans and disproportionately impact communities of color in America compared to their white counterparts.

III. Mass Incarceration: Why Did the Nation Do It?

Nixon and Reagan, along with their associated Congresses, attempted to justify the mass incarceration of Black people through a narrative of Black criminality perpetuating a national moral panic of Black crime that became ingrained in the psyche of white America. Exploiting this moral panic, federal politicians promoted tough on crime policies that promised to address the national fear of Black crime through the punitive incarceration of Black Americans. This resulted in politicians’ gaining electoral votes in predominantly white areas and simultaneously, social control over marginalized Black communities.

The Historical Narrative of Black Criminality

The narrative of rampant Black criminality has been omnipresent throughout American history; it has served as a justification for slavery, the killing and lynching of Black men, and the rape of Black women (Martin 2018, 721). Ta-Nehisi Coates (2015) argues that Black criminality is literally written into the American Constitution through the Fugitive Slave Clause, which declared slave escapes from one state to another to be illegal, and the Black pursuit of freedom, life, or family was criminalized (U.S. Const. art. iv, § 2, cl. 3). Thus, “the pursuit of the right to labor, and the right to live free of whipping and of the sale of one’s children, were verboten for Blacks” from the nation’s founding (Coates 2015). Black criminalization extends far past the text of the American Constitution and into the sociopolitical psyche of Americans, and therefore, American institutions. As compellingly noted by W.E.B. Du Bois, “nothing in the world is easier in the United States than to accuse a Black man of a crime,” and this disturbing truth is built on the foundation of inherent Black criminality (Martin 2018, 707).

Prisons have been much of the source of this Black criminalization since the release of the 1890 Census, when prison statistics were first used to label Blacks as an inherently dangerous and criminal population (Muhammad 2011, 3). The statistics of disproportionate incarceration of Black people that were used to support this racist claim were a result of the mass arrests and convictions of freed Black slaves under vagrancy laws and Black Codes (Ibid., 31). Following the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, all Southern states passed Black Codes as new vehicles through which to secure and control Black labor (Martin 2018, 708). These discriminatory laws criminalized the everyday acts and behaviors of Black Americans (Ibid.). In an effort to exploit labor while complying with the “except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted” clause of the Thirteenth Amendment (U.S. Const., amend. XIII, § 1), many communities jailed Black people and sent them to slave plantations as part of convict lease programs, chain gangs, prison plantations (Childs 2015, 22), and peonage camps (U.S. Const., amend. XIII, § 1). Former slave-owners could continue to get forced, free labor from controlled Blacks, thus, extending the practice of slavery under a new title: incarceration (Childs 2015, 74). The clause provided white legislatures and plantation-owners with monetary and social incentives to incarcerate and criminalize Black individuals. This practice only served to reinforce and worsen the American narrative of Black criminality.

Furthermore, research began to appear in the early 20th century that questioned the objectivity of race-based crime statistics. In 1928, Thorsten Sellin, a leading white sociologist, argued that Black Americans were unfairly and unjustifiably stigmatized by their crime statistics (Sellin 1928, 52). Sellin (1928) reported four decades of statistical research on Black criminality and noted that while crime is attributed to white persons as individual failings of personal responsibility, it is stereotypically linked to the entire, generalized Black community, reinforcing and perpetuating racial inequality. This narrative influences police activity and law enforcement institutions, convincing them that Black people are inherently more likely to commit crimes, which leads to disproportionate arrests and therefore, disproportionate crime statistics between Black and white Americans. The narrative of Black criminality reinforces the perception of Black people as criminals and perpetuates the cycle of Black incarceration and racial bias. 

Moreover, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, politicians used crime statistics to differentiate between the treatment of white European and Black immigrants (Martin 2018, 708). The sociopolitical understanding and treatment of these two communities differed greatly. Although Irish and Italian immigrants were commonly viewed as criminals, social reformers in the Progressive Era argued that white criminality should be understood not as an inborn characteristic but as an unfortunate consequence of poverty (Ibid.). This environmental critique of white European immigrant criminality, however, “was not extended to African Americans” (Muhammad 2011, 92). Rather, Black criminality was and is “more likely to be perceived as either biologically or culturally innate” (Martin 2018, 708). Resistance to this perceived criminality was a distinguishing factor in the assimilation of distinct European immigrant groups into a consolidated notion of shared whiteness, a unification built on its opposition to non-whiteness generally and to Blackness specifically (Ibid.). By the 1940s, the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports—the preeminently used source of American crime statistics—excised the category of "Foreign-born white" altogether (Ibid.). Thus, Blackness was now directly juxtaposed with whiteness as a whole,  further expanding the racial divide between all whites and Blacks in the criminal justice system (Muhammad 2011, 271). 

Following the short industrial employment boom of World War II, the racialized conception of Black crime was further perpetuated by increases in Black unemployment (Katznelson 2005, 14). The unemployment rate for Black people and white people was generally equal in 1930, but by 1955, the unemployment rate among Black Americans was more than twice that of their white peers (Martin 2018, 710). This reality further contributed to the transformation of U.S. metropolitan cities into racially segregated neighborhoods and the concurrent rise of American “ghettos.” In turn, crime became a vital sociopolitical tool used by certain political figures to justify and reframe the oppressive factors working against Black people that lead to conditions of urban poverty (Martin 2018, 710).

The narrative and practice of Black criminality have since continued and expanded in American rhetoric. Politicians and legislators use Black criminality to rationalize tough on crime policies because vilifying Blackness justifies oppression of Black people (Coates 2015). Within this oppressive narrative, “Blacks [are] criminal brutes by nature, and something more than the law of civilized men [is] needed to protect the white public” (Ibid.). Thus, laws and law enforcement practices that heavily and disproportionately incarcerate Black people are wrongly justified by and marked as defense and protection through the labeling of Blacks as criminal (Muhammad 2011, 272).

A Never-Ending National Moral Panic

This exploitation and perpetuation? of white fear, caused by the criminalization of Blackness, can also be understood through the concept of moral panic. Moral panic is a widespread, influential fear that something, someone, or some group of people is a dangerous threat to a society at large coupled with the belief that this perceived evil must be suppressed and defeated (Young 2008, 5). Subsequently, that fear and heightened concern are exaggerated beyond a rational assessment of the perceived danger (Goode and Ben-Yehuda 1994, 154). In a moral panic, these fears and anxieties are socially directed at an event, group, or activity, and the perceived perpetrators of this fear are met with hostility (Ibid., 156). As a result of this hostility, a disproportionate response against the accused perpetrator(s) develops in social, political, and media rhetoric and action (Garland 2008, 11): “the police pursue the deviant with zeal, the media thrive on the controversy, the public avidly follow the outrage and the deviants are galvanized and attacked by the response” (Young 2008, 4).

Coupled with the criminalization of Blackness, a moral panic of Black crime developed with many white communities in the U.S. (Hall et al. 2013, 21). However, the American moral panic of Black crime differs from traditional moral panics as it has not been confined to a specific time period. Rather, it has been continuous throughout this nation’s history and become ingrained in the U.S. psyche. The narrative of Black criminality has persisted throughout every stage of U.S. history, which has kept the national moral panic alive. First, the perception of Black persons as savage criminals was used, in large part, to defend the institution of slavery. The era of Reconstruction and Jim Crow laws saw the legal oppression of Black Americans and an unchecked fear of Black revolt and chaos. The turn of 19th century witnessed Plessy v. Ferguson, which provided the legal imprimatur for segregation for the “protection” of white  Americans, as well as the infamous Birth of a Nation, which portrayed Black Americans as an evil that must be defeated. The early 20th century was home to numerous race riots, such as the Red Summer of 1919, that increased racial tension throughout the nation. While the civil rights movement was a time of victory for African Americans, it wrought tremendous oppression as Black Americans were met with intense Southern resistance, police subjugation, and physical harm. Then, the murder of Rodney King and the notorious trials of O.J. Simpson and the Central Park Five characterized the racial tension of the late 20th century. Finally, the fear of Blackness persists in certain white communities today, as conveyed by the 2017 white nationalist “Unite the Right” March in Charlottesville, Virginia, which threatened Black individuals and communities.

Throughout American history, there has been an unjust, fundamental narrative link between race and crime (Muhammad 2011, 1). For many, the vexed bond between Blackness and incarceration defines the Black experience in the U.S. (Ibid., 2).  The fear of Black crime among white Americans has continuously manifested itself in a severe moral panic, which has resulted in a disproportionate and exaggerated attack on the perceived danger of Black Americans. Politicians have exploited this irrational fear of Black crime and race-related civil unrest to gain electoral support (Gottschalk 2006, 41).

IV. Nixon and Reagan Rhetoric for Securing Votes and Electability

Nixon: Reelection and the ‘Silent Majority’

One year before the passing of the CDAPCA of 1970, President Nixon called for the support of the “great silent majority” (Nixon 1969). 1969 was characterized by anti-Vietnam War demonstrations and the peak of the counterculture revolution. In a time of national turmoil and instability, Nixon championed those who did not actively take part in civil disobedience or social activism. Between the Woodstock Music Festival, which has come to epitomize the essence of the counterculture revolution, and antiwar demonstrations involving over a million Americans, social anxiety swept the nation (BBC, n.d.). Moreover, the antiwar movement was coupled with national activism during the tail-end of the civil rights movement. Nixon’s Great Silent Majority Speech occurred just over a year after the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy and less than a month before the police murder of Black Panther Party leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark (Gregory 2007). Such killings and the continued presence of blatant racial oppression and inequality were met with Black social activism, which again took activists to the streets to demand change. These activists and communities, however, were not Nixon’s voter base. Rather, according to his Domestic Policy Chief John Ehrlichman, “the antiwar left and Black people” were Nixon’s enemies because they undermined his desire for national stability and the prolongation of a conservative status quo (Equal Justice Initiative 2016). As a result, the silent majority, as Nixon named them, was his voting constituency. The silent majority was the subset of Americans who did not publicly speak out against the Vietnam War or fight for racial equality in the nation’s streets. It consisted of mainly white Americans who did not actively partake in politics but merely voted from the conservative suburban, exurban, and rural communities in which they lived and worked. Nixon’s “forgotten man” differed from former President Franklin Roosevelt’s. Roosevelt’s “forgotten man” was the poor industrial worker who served as the backbone of an economy from which he did not benefit (Gale 2016). Nixon’s silent majority, whom he defined as “Americans who’ve been forgotten,” were relatively comfortable, housed, and fed members of the middle class (Nixon 1969; Glae 2016). They reached for the allusive American dream, yearning for grandeur, while simultaneously fearing and looking down upon those who had less (Lassiter 2006, 301).

As he had the support of neither civil rights activists nor the antiwar left, Nixon asked the silent majority for votes and praise in exchange for him championing their causes. The silent majority were mainly white, middle-class Americans who deeply feared losing their power within the country to people of color and the poor (Ibid., 304). The national moral panic of crime and chaos existed in the psyche of the silent majority, during a time in which social stability and national harmony seemed like fiction (Murphy and Gulliver 2008, 3). As a result, Nixon attempted to serve as their protector against the perceived dangers in American society.

Central to his campaign and presidency was Nixon’s promise to restore “law and order” to the American people. To that end, during his presidential campaign, Nixon devoted 17 speeches exclusively to the topic of law and order, and one of his frequently played television advertisements explicitly called on voters to reject the lawlessness of the civil rights movement to promote “order” in the U.S. (Alexander 2012, 46). This law-and-order rhetoric, which is part of the related “Southern Strategy,” was employed to address the silent majority’s concerns about drug use and the perceived consequential violence and social disorder. While it was politically unacceptable to appeal to the silent majority with blatant racism, White House Chief of Staff H.R. Halderman reportedly noted that Nixon “emphasized that you have to face the fact that the whole problem is really the Blacks. The key is to devise a system that recognized this while not appearing to” (Robin 2011, 50). The War on Drugs became that system. 

The War on Drugs provided a vehicle through which politicians could disrupt the antiwar left and poor, urban communities of color. The CDAPCA of 1970 was coupled with Nixon’s attack campaign against “public enemy number one.” As the nation saw a rise in recreational drug use in the 1960s, Nixon exploited the silent majority’s fear of crime, and specifically, drug-related crime. He used and fueled the growing national concern about drug use, which spiked from 5.6% in 1957 to 37.9% in 1972 (Whitford and Yates 2009, 40). Then, he used this social anxiety as a political tool to obtain electoral support. He declared drug users and dealers as the single largest danger to American society and characterized them, along with antiwar activists, as the obstacle preventing an ordered and lawful American society. Despite the White House Conference for Children and Youth’s Task Force on Drugs’ urging President Nixon to address the “root causes of drug abuse” (mental health, addiction, societal ills, and personal environment), he launched a penal war against drug use, blaming it for “attacking the moral fiber of the nation” (Dufton 2012). These punitive responses served as the answer to the nation’s moral panic. Moreover, Nixon went an additional step, labeling drug users as sources of both violent and nonviolent crime (Ibid.). Nixon’s silent majority, at his urging, rejected the notion that societal pressures and mental illness could cause drug use (Ibid.).

Rather than framing it as a sociopolitical concern, Nixon labeled drugs in America as an enemy of war. Beyond consolidating over 50 drug laws into an expanded federal scheduling system, the CDAPCA created numerous federal cabinets and organizations, such as the Special Action Office of Drug Abuse Prevention, the Office of Drug Abuse Law Enforcement, and the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and it laid the foundation for the establishment of the Drug Enforcement Administration (CDAPCA Act 91 § 513 (1970)). Nixon utilized the full extent of the expanded federal government powers to wage war on drug use, establishing a narrative of the government and its peaceful allies (the “silent majority”) on one side of the war and drug users and dealers on the other. To that end, Nixon delivered a special message to Congress in 1971 regarding the recent signing of the CDAPCA, during which he labeled the CDAPCA a “full-scale attack on the problem of drug abuse in America” and stated that he “will ask for additional funds to increase our enforcement efforts to further tighten the noose around the necks of drug peddlers” (Nixon 1971). During this speech, Nixon used the language of war as a persuasive tactic to label drug users and dealers as enemies of the state directly fighting and attempting to destroy the U.S.

Nixon’s ongoing and manipulative war rhetoric heightened the perceived danger of drug use beyond its reality (Tonry 1994, 25). The silent majority and other communities concerned about rising drug use increasingly turned to Nixon because he promised to fight drug use and the perceived evils of American society. Nixon’s characterization of this issue as a war and himself as its general was a calculated political move. It is widely established in research that presidential approval and electoral support increase during wartime (Herbet and Christenson 2007, 280). These phenomena are the result of a common wartime perception that the sitting president is vital to the country’s safety, which can help him get reelected and build a narrative that the nation will lose the war if he transitions from power (Weisberg 2007, 143). Nixon’s wartime rhetoric, coupled with an increasing public perception of the immense dangers of drug-related crime, enabled him to label himself as an indispensable defender of American society. This strategy proved effective; Nixon swept the 1972 election just two years after the passage of the CDAPCA. 

Nixon’s campaign and presidential rhetoric criminalized drug users, labeling them as deserving of incarceration, and the CDAPCA and other drug laws he signed retained only a few rehabilitative and restorative services that had previously been set up for drug-using criminals. Nixon promoted a punitive response to drug users and dealers and accepted only limited funding for specific education, prevention, and rehabilitation programs for drug users (Barber 2016).  In an attempt to expand Nixon’s electorally successful War on Drugs, future presidents, especially Ronald Reagan, doubled down and entirely rejected rehabilitation options to further promote punitive incarceration as the sole response to drug crimes. Nixon’s rhetoric and punitive measures to gain electoral support were just the beginning of the executive exploitation of tough on crime policies.

Reagan Takes Over and Expands Nixon’s War

Recognizing the electoral power of tough on crime language and policies, ambitious Republican and Democratic politicians alike employed similar tactics to exploit the nation’s moral panic of crime, specifically Black drug-related crime. In 1982, Ronald Reagan built upon  Nixon’s warlike rhetoric by declaring drugs as a threat to national security (Glass 2010) and claiming that the United States had long been “losing war against the menace of crime” (Reagan 1982). Reagan aggrandized Nixon’s War on Drugs, and the conflict between the Reagan administration and drug users and dealers in America became fundamental to his administration. Reagan took a two-pronged approach to expanding Nixon’s War on Drug: enacting policies and using the media.

Reagan’s Policies

Reagan transformed a slightly restorative federal response to drug use that was a combination of treatment and punishment into an entirely punitive one; this became known as his “zero tolerance” policy (Skiba et al. 2006). In March of 1981, Reagan stated, “it's far more effective if you take the customers away than if you try to take the drugs away from those who want to be customers,” illustrating his intention to incarcerate drug users as opposed to dealers (Reagan 1981). In that light, between 1980 and 1984, FBI anti-drug funding increased from $8 million to $95 million, and Department of Defense anti-drug appropriations skyrocketed from $33 million in 1981 to well over $1 billion in 1991 (Alexander 2012), 49. Simultaneously, he condemned restorative responses by defunding treatment, prevention, and education; the budget for the National Institute on Drug Abuse decreased from $274 million to $57 million and anti-drug funding for the Department of Education fell from $14 million to $3 million between 1981 and 1984 (Ibid.). This extreme rejection of rehabilitative approaches to drug use and criminal activity in favor of harsh, punitive penal punishment was fundamental to Reagan’s conservative view on crime.

Reagan’s – and to a slightly lesser but still substantial degree, Nixon’s – political approach to crime is better understood through the lens of conservative crime policy: specifically, James Q. Wilson’s “Thinking About Crime.” Wilson (1975) argues that increasing the penalties for criminal activity is the preeminent way to reduce crime (135). Arguing that human nature possesses a desire to commit crime (act outside of the established norms of a society), Wilson asserts that solely restorative approaches are ineffective in preventing crime (Ibid., 119). Furthermore, Wilson is pessimistic about the possibility of changing human nature, which is the foundation of his rejection of the rehabilitative model of crime prevention (Ibid., 118). Therefore, he argues that punitive measures, like lengthy incarceration, are the paramount means to deter crime. For conservatives, the punitive model of crime policy rests on two fundamental pillars: increasing the probability and severity of punishments. Reagan, via the ADAA, advanced both. First, by increasing law enforcement funding and size, the probability of arrest, especially in urban communities of color that are over-policed, surged exponentially. Moreover,  minimum sentences, especially for drug crimes in general and crack cocaine-related crimes in specific, heightened the severity of punishments exponentially.

While Nixon implemented several fundamental characteristics of Wilson’s crime policy, Reagan further racialized it. Reagan increased the probability and severity of punishment for crack cocaine possession to a ratio of 100-to-1 to disproportionately target Black Americans who lived in communities with rampant crack use. Furthermore, despite medical research suggesting that it should not be considered a Schedule I drug, Reagan further punished marijuana use and distribution (Fossier 1931, 247-252). Moreover, while Wilson disagrees with rehabilitative crime measures, he acknowledges the necessity of coupling punitive crime response with crime alternatives through education and well-paying jobs (Wilson 1983). Reagan, however, did not prioritize providing these alternatives, and he directly defunded programs designed to offer education, welfare, and jobs to underserved American communities that were more likely to be influenced by drugs. Lastly, Wilson wrote of this crime policy in a fictional vacuum of equality and just policing, while Reagan implemented crime measures within the heavily racialized American criminal justice system that sees increased contact, arrest, charges, convictions, and sentences for Black Americans due to the systematic narrative of Black criminality and racial bias.

The ADAA was the foundation of Reagan’s overwhelmingly punitive crime policy and the legislative cornerstone to his War on Drugs. Simply put, the ADAA transformed the federal government’s treatment of drug crimes and enforcement of drug-related law enforcement. To analyze chronologically, Title I of the ADAA amended the Controlled Substances Act of the CDAPAC to reduce the threshold quantities of controlled substances needed to constitute enhanced prison penalties, increasing charges, convictions, and sentence lengths for drug crimes (ADAA 1986). Additionally, Title I established mandatory minimum sentences for threshold controlled substance drug crimes, forcing longer prison sentences and removing judicial discretion for possible lighter sentences (Ibid.). Moreover, Subtitle B of Title I established penal penalties and mandatory minimum sentences for the “simple possession of a controlled substance,” criminalizing limited drug use rather than focusing on distribution or manufacturing (Ibid.).

Subtitle F of the ADAA instituted collateral consequences by increasing mandatory minimums for individual convicted of multiple drug crimes (Ibid.). This rule significantly lengthened prison sentences for people and communities with increased police enforcement of drug crimes – specifically urban communities of color – and individuals with prior criminal justice contact. Similarly, Subtitle I increased penal penalties for individuals convicted of unlawful firearm possession with concurring or previous drug offenses (Ibid.). This section dramatically increased the number of incarcerated individuals from poor, urban communities that suffered from violence because those individuals, most often Black Americans, were more likely to be pulled over, stopped, or searched by the police (U.S. Sentencing Commission 2012).

Furthermore, Subtitle V of the ADAA established “procedures for the imposition of the death penalty” for certain collateral drug offenses (ADAA 1986). As a result of the previously mentioned law enforcement mechanisms and societal perceptions, this subtitle has disproportionately resulted in the deaths of Black Americans who bear increased police targeting and contact, harsher prosecutorial charges, and additional jury convictions (Vagins and McCurdy 2006)). For example, of the 2,817 people currently on death row in America, 41% are Black (Equal Justice Initiative, n.d.). Subsequently, to enforce this tremendously expanded federal drug enforcement apparatus, Subtitles J and K authorized increased appropriations, funding, and employment of drug law enforcement agencies and activities (Ibid.). Consequently, the ADAA funded, employed, weaponized, and severely intensified the federal war against both drug users and distributers. To reap the electoral benefits from his War on Drugs policies, Reagan coupled his legislative efforts with impactful and targeted media coverage.

Reagan’s Media Utilization

First, Reagan and his administration used the media to control the coverage of crack cocaine as a method of stoking American fears of growing drug-related crime. Almost immediately after crack appeared, primarily in poor communities, the Reagan administration aggressively publicized the drug (Alexander 2012, 52). The Reagan administration, via the DEA, charged Robert Stutman with the task of managing these media efforts throughout the nation (Ibid.). Stutman subsequently employed a bilateral strategy of seeking out journalists and increasing DEA relations with new media outlets to draw attention to the presence of crack cocaine in inner-city communities (Ibid.). In addition to Robert Stutman, President Reagan hired staff dedicated to publicizing the emergence of crack cocaine in inner-city neighborhoods –specifically in poor, Black communities – to perpetuate the nation’s moral panic and secure the passage of War on Drugs legislation (Alexander 2012, 5). Reagan’s media campaign proved extraordinarily effective as major news outlets in America quickly became saturated with images of Black “crack whores,” “crack dealers,” and “crack babies,” further racializing the stereotype of the drug-using criminal (Ibid.).

 Meanwhile, Nancy Reagan spearheaded the “Just Say No” initiative to further expand the War on Drugs throughout the 1980s. Portraying drug use as a result of an individual’s moral shortcomings and weaknesses, rather than as a reflection of societal failings and mental health, Nancy Reagan encouraged Americans to simply reject drugs with the word “no.” As part of her campaign, the first lady traveled across the nation to appear on talk shows,  public service announcements, and TV networks (McGrath 2016). This campaign only advocated for the rejection of drug experimentation and exaggerated the prevalence, danger, and violence of drug use in America. By doing so, the “Just Say No” campaign further vilified drug use by proclaiming drug users as an immoral enemy.

The anti-drug, and specifically anti-crack cocaine, media efforts of the Reagan administration transcended the social sphere of American society and began to influence other political actors. Primarily, social fear and media coverage of the nation’s drug use led to congressional support for the ADAA. Even during early discussion about the bill, senators used media reports to support their exaggerated and unscientific claims regarding the dangers of crack cocaine (Beaver 2010, 2545). Referencing mediatized violence in America’s cities, and specifically in poor, Black communities, members of Congress overwhelmingly supported the ADAA due to social pressure from their constituents. As the nation’s moral panic of Black crime expanded, politicians recognized the strategic wisdom of supporting the War on Drugs. For example, Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter cited a specific story in Newsweek while defending the 100-to-1 ratio between crack and powder cocaine and the increase of appropriations to law enforcement, during which he compared the sale of crack cocaine in inner-cities to “guerilla insurgency” that made the crack trade an “infuriatingly elusive target for police” (“Senate Session” 1986). Moreover, the media’s coverage of rising drug use in America was used as a justification for mandatory minimum sentences and collateral consequences by members of Congress. Kansas Senator Bob Dole also used media coverage of rampant crack use to defend an amendment in the ADAA that contributed to the disparity between crack and powder cocaine minimum sentences (ADAA 1986). While many medical studies declared no distinction between the nature of crack and power cocaine (U.S. Sentencing Commission 2002), many members of Congress cited news coverage of crack’s addictive nature to promote increased mandatory minimums, which are disproportionately applied to Black Americans (Harvey 2015). Specifically, 80% of those receiving crack cocaine-related minimum sentences are Black, even though over 66% of the drug’s users are white or Hispanic (Palamar et al. 2015).

To achieve this political effort, President Reagan relied on and promoted the nation’s moral panic of Black crime. By publicizing emotionally powerful images of crime and drug use in Black communities, portraying drug use as a reflection of immorality, and equating drug use with violent crime, Reagan exploited and enhanced many white Americans’ fears of Black crime. The narrative of Black criminality has long fostered stereotypes portraying Black people as sources of vice and crime (Nunn 2002, 390). As a result, “Reagan’s anti-drug rhetoric was skillfully designed to tap into deeply held cultural attitudes about people of color and their links to drug use and other illicit behavior” (Ibid., 391). Consequently, Reagan was able to “blame social ills on” Black people without explicitly using racial terms (Ibid.). Similar to Nixon’s reliance on the “silent majority,” Reagan depended on the vote of the “Reagan Coalition,” which was largely comprised by white, socially conservative voters who lived in the rural and suburban U.S. (Reichley 1982, 6). By tapping into the concerns of the population most influenced by moral panic of Black crime, Reagan exploited fear and implicit racial bias to solidify political power.

The Next Protectorate of White America

President Reagan, like Nixon, exploited a national moral panic of Black crime to position himself as a protector of white American society. In fact, in 1982, when Reagan declared his administration’s War on Drugs, recreational drug use was declining (Nunn 2002, 389). In particular, the use of marijuana and cocaine had decreased by approximately 15% between the late 1970s and the early 1980s, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (Tonry 1995, 89). In the early 1980s, crack cocaine was not yet in distribution in the U.S., and both drug use and drug-related crimes were in a steep decline (Nunn 2002, 389). Yet, Reagan centered his political platform around the War on Drugs, reflecting a greater interest in gaining the support of white voters than in combating a serious issue of recreational drug usage in the U.S. (Alexander 2012, 49).

Throughout Reagan’s campaign and presidency, he used racially triggering rhetoric without explicitly evoking race, exploiting rising racial tensions in America to gain white votes. Running for the president in the aftermath of the civil rights movement and during the onset of increased racial tension between police and minority communities, Reagan understood race as a political tool. His candidacy occurred in the immediate aftermath of the 1980 Miami Riots, which were catalyzed by the killing of a Black American by four white police officers, and Reagan positioned himself as a champion of biased and fearful white voters. Specifically, Reagan “cultivated the concept of so-called reverse racism” (Gomer and Petrella 2017) by promoting “state’s rights” (Alexander 2012, 48) and promising to end “civil rights programs and policies” (Gomer and Petrella 2017). Rural and suburban white Americans – the same population comprising Nixon’s “silent majority” – were angered by social welfare and civil rights programs that were perceived to mainly benefit people of color in the U.S., such as affirmative action. As a result, Reagan, in the years following Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, “began to roll back civil rights protections” arguing that they unjustly benefited people of color in the U.S. (448 US 265 (1978)).[1] For example, Reagan publicized the term “welfare queen” throughout his campaign. He defined the “welfare queen” as one “with 80 names, 30 addresses, 12 social security cards” who enjoyed a tax-free income of “over $150,000” (Edsall and Edsall 1992, 148). Without explicitly defining the skin color of the “welfare queen,” Reagan used rhetoric and mediatized imagery to synonymize the “welfare queen” with the “lazy, greedy, Black ghetto mother” (Alexander 2012, 49). By doing so, Reagan attacked the very same programs for which the civil rights movement fought. Subsequently, Reagan reduced support and opportunities for people of color, especially those in poor, urban communities. As alternatives dwindled, drug use and distribution logically rose within those very same neighborhoods.

Simultaneously, Reagan increased the size, scope, and punitive nature of the War on Drugs, which targeted the same communities that were experiencing reductions in government support. To that end, Reagan’s administration satisfied the angered white voters who resisted the civil rights movement (Ibid., 54). Beginning in the 1970s, research studies illustrated that racial attitudes, not crime rates or statistics, are the leading determinant of white support for tough on crime policies (Ibid). As a result, white voters who remained resentful of Black progress and held inherent racial biases were statistically in favor of Reagan’s tough on crime policies, especially the zealous War on Drugs. 

As a political maneuver, Reagan’s rhetorical and legislative efforts concurrently imprisoned his opposition while bolstering his supporters’ interests. Through the War on Drugs, Reagan attacked communities of color that statistically opposed his candidacy. Specifically, 86% of Black Americans and 72% of individuals identifying as liberal voted against Reagan in 1980 (Ibid., 54). By increasing the presence and authority of law enforcement and vehemently prosecuting drug offenses that were more prevalent in communities of color, Reagan disrupted Black Americans’ lives, and subsequently, prevented millions from voting via felony disenfranchisement voting restrictions (Schroeder 2018). Meanwhile, he secured the “Reagan coalition” voter base by championing whites who “fear[ed] or resent[ed]” Black Americans and echoing white frustration through implicit racial rhetoric and actions (Alexander 2012, 48). The electoral success of Reagan’s targeted campaigns, rhetoric, and legislation further illustrated the power of racialized tough on crime politics and informed future generations of U.S. politicians.

V. The Legacy of Nixon’s and Reagan’s War on Drugs

Immediately following Reagan’s two presidential terms, the nation was tasked with deciding between the continuation of Reagan’s “new conservatism” or a new path labeled by Democratic liberalism. In 1988, George H. W. Bush ran against Massachusetts Governor Mike Dukakis, and the candidates’ differing crime policies quickly became fundamental to the election. While Bush continued Reagan’s tough on crime rhetoric, Dukakis offered a new crime model that promoted prison reform.

While Governor of Massachusetts, Dukakis supported a prison furlough program that would grant selected incarcerated inmates weekend passes to aid in reentry. In the 1988 presidential election, Bush, through a national security PAC, continuously ran an attack advertisement against Dukakis that exploited the crime committed by one Black man in Massachusetts (Ibid.). This advertisement depicted a “mug shot” of Willie Horton, a recipient of a weekend pass. Horton, a Black man, was convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment (NBC Learn 1988). During his weekend pass, Mr. Horton reportedly escaped, kidnapped a young heterosexual couple, stabbed the man, and raped the woman.  This advertisement depicts a mug shot of Willie Horton in a pixilated Black and white photo. The photo accentuated Willie Horton’s Blackness, darkening his skin in contrast to the background (Ibid.). The photo depersonalized him, stripping his individual characteristics and simply depicting him as a generic Black man who committed a terrible crime. This was a measured tactic to convince viewers that a similar event could occur in their own communities. Lerman and Waver (2013) argued that the imagery of Horton served several purposes for the Republican party; it not only furthered white fear of Black crime, but also reinforced the perception, held by many white voters, that the Democratic party was far too tolerant of crime. The Bush campaign capitalized on the white national moral panic of Black crime that Reagan purposely promoted, transferring fear into votes.

The Bush campaign garnered white votes in the same manner as Nixon’s and Reagan’s campaigns: via legislation, presidential rhetoric, and portrayal of Bush as the defender of white voters from dangerous Black crime. The political advertisement marked Bush as the tough on crime candidate who supported the death penalty, while depicting Dukakis as “soft on crime” and in support of programs that allowed inmates like Willie Horton to be free in American society (NBC Learn 1988). By characterizing Bush as “tough on crime,” the campaign argued that he would heavily and unapologetically incarcerate criminals, a term disproportionately and incorrectly linked to Blackness. The goal of this portrayal was to convince white voters that Bush would protect them. In contrast, Dukakis’ prison reform policies had him labeled “soft on crime,” and supportive of “overly permissive policies that had allowed the furlough program to persist” (Lerman and Weaver 2013). The public partially blamed Dukakis for Horton’s actions against white victims because of his refusal to be “tough on crime.”

The legacy of Willie Horton holds preeminent importance in the American political and criminal justice systems. Following the 1988 presidential election, which Dukakis lost, tough on crime policies became cemented in the platforms of Democrats and Republicans alike. Determined to not follow in the failed footsteps of Dukakis, Bill Clinton established himself as a tough on crime candidate who would secure “law and order,” rhetoric directly from Nixon’s campaign and book (Page 2012).

To that end, a vital moment occurred on January 24, 1992, when then Governor of Arkansas Bill Clinton returned home to personally oversee the execution of Ricky Ray Rector, a severely brain-damaged Black man who was convicted of  killing a white police officer. In an effort to prove his support of the death penalty and tough on crime policies, unlike some of his Democratic predecessors, Clinton “jaunt[ed] off the campaign train” to deny Rector clemency, approving his execution (Ibid.). Clinton politicized the execution of Ricky Ray Rector throughout his campaign, hoping to prove that he would not only incarcerate dangerous Black criminals, but also execute them. This policy platform extended into Clinton’s presidency: “Clinton proudly signed the most expansive crime bill in history…[The] bi-partisan legislation contained sentencing provisions—including a federal three strikes collateral consequences—targeting repeat offenders, juveniles as young as 13, and offenders of drug-related crimes” (Ibid.).

This tough on crime platform has continued throughout the early 21st century and is remarkably prevalent in the candidacy and presidency of Donald Trump. During his presidential campaign, Trump pledged to be tough on crime and to “restore law and order” – another term dedicated to the politicized incarceration of perceived criminals, mainly Black, in the name of producing and benefiting public safety (Ibid.). In Trump’s inaugural address, he promised to attack “the crime and gangs and drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential” (Ibid.). This rhetoric of crime, gangs, and drugs further targets Black Americans via the disproportionate and mediatized association of gangs with urban communities of color (Grawert and Camhi 2017).

Moreover, Trump has attempted to conjure up a false narrative about rising crime in an effort to rekindle and exacerbate a fear of crime that has been alleviated in recent years (Ibid.). While the white fear of Black crime has remained prevalent in American society, it has lessened substantially from the peaks of the 1980s and 1990s, when urban riots occurred somewhat frequently and often frightened white voters. However, Trump has repeatedly used misleading or incorrect statistics to promote a false narrative of rising crime (Ibid.). With a call for urgent, drastic action, Trumps continues to try to use the political tactics of past presidents to be perceived as a champion for white American interests. While President Barack Obama took several steps to reduce federal imprisonment, which dropped 9.5% since 2017, Trump has opposed bipartisan criminal justice reform proposals (Ibid.). Moreover, he continues to utilize the white moral panic of Black and nonwhite crime in his increased immigration enforcement and detention. By labeling immigrants as rapists and murderers, Trump employs white fear to justify bigoted and targeted attacks of nonwhite immigrants and even those born within the U.S. (Ibid.). As you can see, the legacy of Nixon and Reagan’s calculated actions still plays a role in today’s politics (Ibid.).  

VI. Conclusion: Politicized Racism

Throughout American history, politicians have used race as a sociopolitical tool for social control. While blatant and explicit racist terms have, in part, been socially and legally banned from political rhetoric in America, their foundational bias lives on in implicitly racial rhetoric and actions. Epitomized by numerous and ongoing wars against crime and drugs, politicians have architected a racialized carceral state that is responsible for the incarceration of 2.4 million Black Americans without explicitly evoking race in speeches, campaigns, and laws (NAACP, n.d.). These efforts have been rewarded with electoral votes and victorious campaigns.

The U.S. is riddled with racial narratives, discriminatory institutions, and inherent biases. As a result, the American polity must recognize and combat the national sociopolitical biases that oppress, marginalize, and criminalize Black Americans. To do so, we should analyze not only the written text of legislation, but also their accompanying political rhetoric, targeted constituency, and narrative style. It is only through race-consciousness, rather than naïve colorblindness, and the direct challenging of racist narratives, moral panics, practices, and systems that progress can truly occur. 

[1] In California v. Bakke (1978), The Supreme Court upheld affirmative action, allowing race to be one of several factors in higher education admission decisions. The Court, via dicta, determined that specific racial quotas, however, are unconstitutional.