War On Drugs Unit 2

Which former president’s election marked the start of a more punitive era of drug law enforcement?

Ronald Reagan

According to Reinerman and Levine in “The Crack Attack,” what helped turn crack into a “moral panic?”

Exaggerated media coverage, saying words like “plague, war zone, epidemic”

What did Reinerman and Levine, authors of “The Crack Attack,” argue about official drug-use data during the height of the crack scare?

It did not match the rhetoric driven by the media, drug use was stable or declining

Which of the following best summarizes the liberal vs. conservative arguments about discretionary sentencing prior to sentencing guidelines?

Liberals argued that discretion led to arbitrary decisions, undermined to process, and allowed for racial bias. Conservatives argued that discretion led to leniency with rehabilitation for offenders who committed serious crimes, and their sentences were not harsh enough

Under sentencing guidelines, what information can be used to determine offense severity?

The type and amount of the drug, offender’s role in the offense, whether it was sold to youth/vulnerable population, whether the drugs were sold in a drug-free zone

What did the Anti-Drug Abuse Act create for many drug offenses?

 Mandatory minimum sentences. If you were convicted of something there was a definite amount of time you at least had to serve. 

 What was the crack/powder cocaine sentencing disparity under the Anti-Drug Abuse Act?

100:1 discrepancy in the amount of powder and crack cocaine necessary to trigger a mandatory minimum

 What is one criticism of drug-free school zone laws?

These drug-free school zone laws often take place in dense, urban areas, meaning that even though you might not be selling drugs at the school, it could still be considered in the “area”

Under the Rockefeller Drug Laws (New York), what was the required sentence for anyone convicted of selling 2 ounces of narcotics?

15 years - life

Interdiction efforts are designed to reduce:

The supply of drugs entering the US

Under the H.W. Bush Administration, where did the vast majority of the “National Drug Control Strategy” budget go?

Law enforcement (1.5 billion) and interdiction (1.5 billion)

What happened in your assigned “President Bush’s Speech” video?

He displayed a bag of cocaine that was found in the park across the street from the White House, demanding stronger drug policies

What happened to heroin trafficking after the dismantling of the French Connection in 1972?

Reduced the supply of heroin coming into the U.S., but opened up a new market focusing on new drug routes and increasing groups involved

Among high school seniors in the U.S. (1980-1990), did the 30-day prevalence of any illicit drug use increase, decrease, or stay the same?

Decreased

Wilson & Kelling’s (1982) Broken Windows Theory argued that law enforcement can reduce crime by…

Focusing on disorder and petty offenses, arguing that “street crime flourishes in areas where disorderly behavior goes unchecked”

After New York City adopted Order Maintenance Policing (OMP), what was the percentage change in the arrest rate for marijuana possession

 Increased by almost 500% 

What did the U.S. Supreme Court decide in Terry v. Ohio (1968)?

“Stop and frisk” does not violate the Constitution as long as (1) there is reasonable belief and (2) the officer believes the safety of themselves or others around is endangered

What did the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately rule about whether race and ethnicity can be taken into account when determining reasonable suspicion?

Race and ethnicity can be a factor - but not the only factor

What did the U.S. Supreme Court rule about pretextual traffic stops?

 Police can make pretextual traffic stops if an officer, acting reasonably, would have made the stop for the given reason

What are “Drug Courier Profiles?”

 List of characteristics thought to be common to those transporting illegal drugs through the nation’s airports

What is meant by “financial incentives to fight the drug war?”

the federal government provided financial incentives to state and local governments…federal aid for law enforcement officers who worked with policing drugs

How did SWAT use change because of the drug war?

 Increase in SWATs for drug raids starting in the 80s. $1.2 million of military equipment to local law enforcement agencies. Became used to serve search warrants for suspected drug dealers. 

Which best summarizes the research on racial differences in drug use and selling during the contemporary war on drugs era (i.e., 1980s-early 2000s)?

Black individuals use and sell drugs at higher rates than White individuals, and police arrest Black individuals in numbers disproportionate to their involvement 

Aside from concerns about racial profiling, what other factors may have contributed to racial differences in drug arrests during the 1980s and 1990s?

 Police invest more energy and effort in arresting people in inner cities, which disproportionately target drug transactions among Black individuals. 

According to focal concerns theory, what are judges’ and prosecutors’ three focal concerns?

1. Blameworthiness and culpability, 2. Protection of the community 3. Practical constraints and organizational costs

According to ideas put forth by Albonetti (1991), prosecutors and judges often have limited information about the offender and offense. To reduce uncertainty, they might

 implicitly resort to stereotypes about dangerousness and threat

Court actors work within a “____” which means there are local goals and expectations about how cases are handled.

Courtroom community

In the era of mandatory minimums and sentencing guidelines, which court actor has the most discretionary power over sentence length?

Prosecutor

Which of the following was a general finding about plea bargaining from Engel et al.’s (1999) study of charging decisions in Washington State?

Odds of being convicted with delivery rather than possession was 70x greater if convicted at trial rather than a plea bargain 

Belenko and Spohn (2012) suggested that prosecutors may use “charge stacking” to induce guilty pleas based upon which finding?

Drug trafficking charges were dismissed in 1/4th of cases, which could suggest over charging & charge stacking

Which prosecutor decisions influence the application of mandatory minimums?

Filing a charge that would trigger a mandatory minimum, file a motion to apply the mandatory minimum, whether to dismiss mandatory minimum charge during plea deal negotiations, and whether to file a motion for downward departure for providing substantial assistance

What was a general conclusion about mandatory minimums in Ulmer et al.’s (2007) study on Pennsylvania court cases?

Mandatory penalty was only applied in 12% of eligible cases. Offenders who accept a plea deal are 60% less likely to receive a mandatory minimum. Mandatory minimums may be a tool for securing guilty pleas rather than a mandatory sentence that is uniformly applied in practice

What are Substantial Assistance Departures?

Sentence reductions for providing substantial assistance with investigations or prosecutions of another person

What is the average sentencing discount (%) applied with Sentencing Discount Departures, according to research on district courts (1998-2000)?

50%

What did Nagel and Schulhofer (1992) find about the use of Substantial Assistance Departures in their qualitative study of prosecutors?

The departures were used to mitigate the sentences of “salvagable” or “sympathetic” defendants and the prosecutors’ decisions were influenced by their perceptions of the value of the case and the sentence that was deserved

What is one criticism of Substantial Assistance Departures and Sentencing?

The departure decisions can produce the kinds of disparities that sentencing guidelines were intended to eliminate. 

About how much did the number of offenders convicted of drug offenses in the federal court system change 1992-2011?

Fourfold (4x)

Which finding from Engen and Steen’s (2000) study best shows how eliminating First-Time Offender Waiver eligibility affected sentencing for drug offenders in Washington?

 Percentage of offenders sentenced to prison increased from 23.6% to 87.5%

Many sentencing studies use data on actual cases from court file databases to conduct statistical analyses. What is an advantage of this approach?

 It allows researchers to isolate the effect of one factor while controlling other factors. 

What is a key difference between sentencing disparity and sentencing discrimination?

Disparity is when judges impose different sentences on two offenders with the same criminal history who are convicted of the same crime, etc. Discrimination is when legally irrelevant characteristics of a defendant affect the sentence, after all legally relevant variables are taken into consideration

Why might we expect to see INTERjurisdictional disparity?

There are different sentencing patterns in different jurisdictions - some crimes might be viewed as more serious than others

What is INTRAjurisdictional disparity?

When sentences imposed by judges in the same jurisdiction vary. Different judges may have different perceptions of crime

Which best describes the concept of “individual discrimination?”

Discriminatory acts by particular officials - one judge in a jurisdiction sentences males more harshly

Say that sentencing outcomes are harsher for men in part because they are more likely to be detained pretrial. Is this an indirect effect, direct effect, or interaction effect?

Indirect effect

What were the general findings about gender disparities in sentencing across Spohn and DeLone (1998) and Spohn (1998)?

Judges are 2.5x more likely to sentence a man to prison than a woman & female offenders are treated more leniently only when they did not have dependent children and did not have a prior drug conviction

According to Blumstein (1982), to what extent do drug arrest rates account for racial disproportionalities in drug incarceration rates?

Racial differences in arrest rates for drug offenses could only explain half of the disproportionality in imprisonment 

What were the general patterns of racial/ethnic disparities in sentencing identified in Spohn and Spears’s (2003) study of Miami, Chicago, and Kansas City?

Hispanic individuals face greater odds of incarceration in Miami, but not Chicago or Kansas City. Sentence lengths were longer for Hispanics in Miami and Chicago. Black individuals received higher sentences in Kansas City. Racial/ethic disparities emerge differently across cities

In research by Steen et al. (1999/2005), the authors argue that criminal justice decision-makers develop stereotypes about “dangerous drug offenders” based on which factors?

 Gender, prior record, type of offense

Why did Steen et al. (2005) expect White male defendants to receive especially harsh sentences when they fit the “dangerous drug offender” stereotype?

They would be seen as more “atypical and culpable”

Spohn and Sample (2013) hypothesized that men who fit a “dangerous drug offender” stereotype will receive longer sentences than all other offenses. What did they find?

Varies depending on other characteristics