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Full-Text Articles in Law and Race
Underlying Racism Within The Opioid Epidemic, Hannah L.A.S. Wilson
Underlying Racism Within The Opioid Epidemic, Hannah L.A.S. Wilson
Brigham Young University Prelaw Review
Within the past century, the United States attempted different legal
avenues to address drug abuse. Some of these efforts made access
to drugs punishable and illegal. Others encouraged research to look
at underlying issues of drug abuse and implement those findings.
Within the past fifty years, these laws tended to treat drug addicts
as criminals instead of as persons suffering from a health crisis.
According to the FBI and Uniform Crime Reports, from the 1980’s
to the 2000’s, drug arrests rose by 1.5 million per year, while drug
usage rates stayed the same.3 The severe increase in the criminalization
and …
Sentencing Disparities And The Dangerous Perpetuation Of Racial Bias, Jelani Jefferson Exum
Sentencing Disparities And The Dangerous Perpetuation Of Racial Bias, Jelani Jefferson Exum
Faculty Publications
This Article addresses the role that racial disparities— specifically sentencing disparities—play in perpetuating the racial bias that increases the daily danger of living as a Black American in the United States. As documented in the news and by sometimes humorous internet memes, White people have called the police many times to report Black people who were simply living as any other American. This trend highlights the manner in which the U.S. criminal justice system’s racial inequities feed into biased beliefs about Black criminality. This Article argues that instead of tackling implicit bias as a means to fight sentencing and other …