12 Mass Incarceration and the War on Drugs

Introduction: Teaching Through Rather Than About

This lesson chooses to focus on not only the historical aspects of the War on Drugs but showcase the number of African Americans currently incarcerated. Students first participate in a short discussion, take notes on the history of War on Drugs, learn about War on Drugs from four African Americans, study incarceration rates in different states, and finally write a short essay about War on Drugs initiatives and how it affects a community. An extra credit/homework opportunity is provided for students to use several resources to research the abolishment of prisons or how to reform incarceration. Overarching goal of this lesson is to teach students about the War on Drugs through a Black/African American perspective by having students read and listen to members from that community speak about history, experiences, and consequences of mass incarceration. All documents and videos’ that students utilize throughout the lesson are purely from a Black/African American perspective. Thereby this lesson acknowledges that Americans have different perspectives and experiences based upon one’s race. Throughout this lesson the focus is for students to understand the historical significance of the increasing African American incarceration rates since the 1970’s and the governments perpetuation of racial stereotypes-especially of African American men/boys. This lesson lends itself to a follow up lesson plan on the Golden Age of Rap, a time when the African American community began to openly call out incarceration rate injustices. Students will concur at the end, how racially biased the criminal justice system currently operates as well as the government initiatives that sent millions of African American men and boys to prison.

Framework

During the lesson, Black voices will be heard rather than talked about in a variety of avenues. Jay-Z’s nearly four-minute video discussing the history of War on Drugs, and how it affected him is a pivotal moment in this lesson. While most students will be familiar with Jay-Z’s name or music, some may not understand his significance as a leader within the African American community who purposely created a video about how War on Drugs has harmed his community. Another important moment is Roland Martin’s discussion and interview of two people who are working to end the War on Drugs. This short video provides answers as to how to end the War on Drugs by three people who are from the community it affects the most. In America, most educators continue to be White females, while only 1% of educators are Black men. Which means that educators must first ensure their classroom includes culturally inclusive materials and topics. Then ensure those topics are spoken about from the people group it affects i.e., showing a video about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr created by an African American. Two Black Historical Consciousness Principles guided this lesson plan on how the War on Drugs and incarceration affects Black/African American community. First, Power and Oppression theme can be noted as students study the high percentage of incarcerated Black men and women compared to white and Latinx counterparts. The Taifa article explains how incarceration continues to disproportionately affect the Black/African American community. Second, Roland Martin and Jay-Z’s videos indicate the Black Agency, Resistance, and Perseverance theme by demonstrating how the Black/African American community is fighting against oppressive mass incarceration. Jay-Z’s video seeks to educate on mass incarceration of Black/African American men whereas Roland Martin’s explains how it has damaged the Black community. By creating YouTube videos these two men are teaching possibly thousands of viewers about the toll mass incarceration takes on the Black/African American community. Teaching through Black Histories requires White educators to be honest with themselves and utilize self-reflection. Thus, class materials from the perspective of a variety of races are essential to White teachers. The 21st century teacher whose classroom increasingly diversified needs multicultural resources.

Pedagogical Applications

One of the goals of this lesson is to get students talking about prisons and incarcerations. Pedagogically, students will participate in discussion (either verbally or written). Cultures more orally inclined will likely want to discuss these topics as a class whereas less outspoken cultures may prefer to write their answers down. It is up to the teacher to determine the best avenue for their class. The first part of this lesson has students using notetaking skills to learn about the history of the War on Drugs. Note Taking has been shown to be a skill needed in college, while the handout has fill in notes, a teacher can make these sections blank for students to take their own notes on the slides. Analysis of both primary and secondary sources is a third pedagogical skill used with the documents. Students must be able to hear, see and read four documents’ perspectives on the War on Drugs. Finally, research skills and the ability to use charts as proof of historical issues in the United States will teach students how to analyze data. This lesson intends to utilize all these pedagogical approaches with the ultimate goal of studying War on Drugs and mass incarceration.

Connections to Oregon State Social Science Standards:

• HS.1 Analyze the positive and negative implications of the US Constitution, Bill of Rights and Amendments, Supreme Court decisions, Federal Laws, and executive orders, for political, legal, economic, and social equality for all, including traditionally marginalized groups.
• HS.2 Identify and analyze the existence and perpetuation of di local, state, national, or global context.
• HS.41 Analyze migration patterns to understand the relationships among major events, government policies, private action, and spatial diffusion of ideas, technologies, and cultural practices, in the distribution of human populations, segregation of communities, and marginalization and empowerment of individuals and groups.
• HS.61 Analyze and explain the multiple experiences and perspectives of ethnic and traditionally marginalized groups to investigate conflicting interpretations of past and present events of national and/or global interest.
• HS.65 Identify and explain strategies of survivance, resistance and societal change by individuals and traditionally marginalized groups confronting discrimination, genocide, and other forms of violence, based on race, national origin, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, and gender.
• HS.70 Identify and critique how the perspective of contemporary thinking influences our view of history.
• HS. 78 Identify and critique how implicit bias, institutional racism, racial supremacy, privilege, intersectionality, and identity, influence perspectives in the understanding of history and contemporary events.

Lesson Narrative

Beginning in the 1970’s with President Nixon, and then pushed by President Reagan in the 1980’s, the War on Drugs has driven the imprisonment of individuals caught with or dealing in illegal substances (some of which were not illegal in the early 20^th century). However, data denotes the increased imprisonment of African Americans, specifically during the War on Drugs. After Reconstruction, African Americans seeking a better life after slavery were imprisoned at significantly higher rates, many often without a trial. African Americans men/boys in prison were forced to do hard labor and young African American boys were imprisoned for crimes white peers were not. Currently, African Americans are imprisoned at five times the rate of white Americans and four times the rate of Latinx counterparts (The Sentencing Project (pdf), 2021). These statistics do not show the humanity in what increased incarceration of African American men has on the community or how unjust the justice system has been towards Black men/boys. This lesson hopes to bring light, awareness and hopefully advocacy for imprisoned African Americans.

Overview and Description of the Essential Question

The essential question asks which government policies affected the War on Drugs initiative; students will be required to conclude that specific government intervention on the drug market propelled incarceration. As the lesson progresses students will be able to identify that these government policies, proposed and encouraged by wealthy Caucasians, especially affected the African American community. The last part of the question is meant to give a historical timeline or context as to when these events are occurring such as in the aftermath of the 1960’s revolutions where drug use became commonplace. This lesson plan includes a class discussion, a short note taking section for students to become familiar with the facts of the War on Drugs, an inquiry section about each state’s incarceration rates, and a short essay. This lesson could be done during a 90-minute class or broken into two 50-minute class periods.

Staging the Question

Students will be given an open-ended question to pique interest. Student question: Does anyone know someone who has spent time in prison? If so, what do you know about that person’s time in prison? If not, what do you know about prison? The teacher will then give students 5-10 minutes to answer this question. After giving students time to think and write about their answer (which is also on the student handout) the teacher will open the question to the class for answers. Students will not be required to give their answer to this question, since this might be a sensitive and personal topic. It is imperative that the teacher be careful but forthright when discussing incarceration.

Question 1, Formative Task 1, Featured Sources

The first supporting question opens another short discussion by asking students what they know about prison. Then showing students how the War on Drugs increased incarceration rates, especially within the African American community. Students will fill out a handout as Google’s Slides are presented on history of War on Drugs. This handout includes questions for Formative Task 2 and Formative Task 3 as well as an extra credit/homework section. The primary objective of this section is to give students context as to why and how incarceration rates climbed beginning in the 1970’s.

• War on Drugs and Mass Incarceration Presentation Slides (pptx)

• War on Drugs and Mass Incarceration Student Handout (docx)

Question 2, Formative Task 2, Featured Sources

The second supporting question asks students to self-reflect and analyze where they have gotten information about what life is like in prison. The teacher will then lead the class in a short discussion and even create a list on the board about how students know about prison life. This list will likely include places such as-friend/relative, movies/TV shows, YouTube, social media. The teacher can also extend this discussion to ask students if it was clear in all these reenactments why the prisoners were incarcerated. Then the teacher will separate students into groups of 2-3 students to go through four stories of African Americans imprisoned via QR codes. Student groups will watch or read each of these documents together as a group, then answer each set of questions. The goal of this activity is to read or hear about the personal stories of African Americans who have been incarcerated due to War on Drugs initiatives.

• ​War on Drugs and Mass Incarceration Videos & Student Questions Document (docx)

Question 3, Formative Task 3, Featured Sources

In a very simply stated question, this part of the lesson asks students to reveal what they have learned from the personal stories in Formative Task 2. The obvious answer is yes to this question. It will then be up to the teacher to ask students to explain why some people are falsely and wrongfully imprisoned. A teacher might choose to create a shortlist on the board of the reasons why a person is unjustly imprisoned. Then the teacher will direct students to use the website to choose one state to study. It is vital that the teacher demonstrate to the class how to complete this task and encourage students to choose a variety of states. The goal of this activity is to get students to first see what role each state plays in the mass incarceration of African American men then how mass incarceration is a national crisis.

Summative Performance Task

The Conclusion section on the War on Drugs and Mass Incarceration Student Handout will demonstrate students’ understanding of essential questions by asking students to explain which government policy had the greatest effect on the African American community. Student answers will show how at least one government policy increased incarceration rates, particularly in the African American community. Then students will show how an increased incarceration affects a community (less men in the community to work, more families in poverty, etc). as pointed out throughout the lesson.

Potential Civic Engagement

During this part of the lesson plan students can earn extra credit or complete for homework an outline on how to change or abolish the prison system. Six websites given for students on the War on Drugs and Mass Incarceration Student Handout to assist in the beginnings of research. While learning more about the prison reform and abolishment projects students can choose to become more civically engaged by interacting with each project via social media. If a student chooses, they can begin getting support for prison reform/abolishment within their own community.

Conclusion

The goal of this lesson plan is to showcase the cause and effect of the War on Drugs, pushed by various presidents, on the African American community. Thus, demonstrating one visual of systematic racism in America. By first teaching the history of the War on Drugs and then allowing students to read letters from those incarcerated, students will learn more about the humanity of the prison system. This lesson seeks to teach through, rather than about Black histories by allowing students to read letters from African Americans imprisoned via the War on Drugs. As well as showcasing the effect the initiative has had on the African American community in the late 20^th Century. Furthermore, it is hoped that this lesson plan teaches students to be empathetic to prisoners and their families.

Image Attributions

[Untitled photograph of a person standing behind jail bars] (2006). Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Prison.jpg. Public Domain.

Kemp, J. (Director) (2017). [Cropped version of series thumbnail image]. America’s War on Drugs [TV mini-series]. Talos Films.

NORML (2025). [Untitled digital video thumbnail of Richard Nixon and a report from the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse]. The NORML Foundation.

References

Bonczar, T. (2003). Prevalence of Imprisonment in the U.S. Population. In The Sentencing Project (pdf) (pp. 4–6). Bureau of Justice Statistics. https://www.sentencingproject.org/app/uploads/2022/08/Trends-in-US-Corrections.pdf

Equal Justice Initiative. (2019). Diane Jones. Equal Justice Initiative. https://eji.org/cases/diane-jones/

Falwell, Sr., J. (1986, September 2). War On Drugs Letter. Liberty University. https://liberty.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p17184coll1/id/428

Friedman, M. (1989, September 7). An Open Letter To Bill Bennett. University of North Carolina, Greensboro. https://web.uncg.edu/dcl/courses/viceCrime/m6/Milton%20Friedman%20-%20An%20Open%20Letter%20To%20Bill%20Bennett.htm

History.com (2017, May 31). War on Drugs. History; A&E Television Networks. https://www.history.com/topics/crime/the-war-on-drugs

Drug Policy Alliance (2016, September 15). Jay Z – The War on Drugs: From Prohibition to Gold Rush. (video) YouTube. https://youtu.be/HSozqaVcOU8

Martin, R. S. (2013). The Impact Of America’s War On Drugs On African-American Men And The Black Community. (video) YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90-aMuDAPxQ

NPR. (2007, April 2). Timeline: America’s War on Drugs. https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9252490

Prison Policy Initiative. (2022). Oregon profile. Prison Policy. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/profiles/OR.html

Reveal (2016, March 3). The Box: Teens in Solitary Confinement in U.S. Jails, Prisons and Juvenile Halls (video, updated). Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FU_lgdCTs0

Taifa, N. (2021, May 10). Race, Mass Incarceration, and the Disastrous War on Drugs. Brennan Center for Justice. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/race-mass-incarceration-and-disastrous-war-drugs