Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky

by Noam Chomsky

Also, if you just look at the composition of the prison population, you’ll find that the crime-control policy that’s been developed is very finely honed to target select populations. So for example, what’s called the “War on Drugs,” which has very little to do with stopping the flow of drugs, has a lot to do with controlling the inner-city populations, and poor people in general. In fact, by now over half the prisoners in federal prisons are there on drug charges—and it’s largely for possession offenses, meaning victimless crimes, about a third just for marijuana.34 Moreover, the “Drug War” specifically has been targeted on the black and Hispanic populations—that’s one of its most striking features. So for instance, the drug of choice in the ghetto happens to be crack cocaine, and you get huge mandatory sentences for it; the drug of choice in the white suburbs, like where I live, happens to be powder cocaine, and you don’t get anywhere near the same penalties for it. In fact, the sentence ratio for those drugs in the federal courts is 100 to 1.35