Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America

Content Warning: The section of the guide addresses racism and racial inequities in the US criminal justice system.

One of Forman’s most important contributions to the study of the US criminal justice system is his recognition of the role of Black leaders in tough-on-crime policies. Researchers have addressed the relationship between federal policies, harsh approaches to crime fighting, and the mass incarceration of Black people. For example, in 1971, President Nixon announced “a new, all-out offensive” against drugs (20). As Forman observes, however, Nixon was primarily concerned with hard drugs. Similarly, President Reagan’s Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 introduced stiffer penalties for drug crimes, focusing on crack offenses (1986). President Clinton also supported tough-on-crime policies, notably, a 1994 federal crime legislation that financed the construction of new prisons across the country.

Although the federal government undeniably embraced the tough-on-crime policies that fueled mass incarceration, Forman argues that city administrators across the country played an equally important role in promoting punitive justice. Forman points to the failure of Clarke’s 1975 proposal to decriminalize marijuana in DC as a watershed moment in the nation’s tough-on-crime stance. Indeed, many of the city’s Black leaders opposed Clarke’s bill, arguing that marijuana was a gateway drug that would increase the use of harder drugs, such as heroin, which had been ravaging American cities since the late 1960s.