FROM CRIMINALIZATION TO REHABILITATION: Abandoning “The War on Drugs” THESIS EDIT | Page 8

The music group System of a Down famously breaks down America’s prison population
crisis in their song titled “Prison Song,” which was released in 2001, appearing on their Toxicity
album. With these lyrics System of a Down, unsurprisingly, did a better job in 2001 of
explaining the circumstances than most politicians and policy makers try to do today:
Following the rights movements you clamped on with your iron fists
Drugs became conveniently available for all the kids...

Nearly 2 million Americans are incarcerated

In the prison system, prison system of the U.S. ...
The percentage of Americans in the prison system, prison system

Has doubled since 1985...

All research and successful drug policies show that treatment should be increased
And law enforcement decreased while abolishing mandatory minimum sentence
Who makes up the majority of the federal prison population? According to the America
Civil Liberties Union, it is the nonviolent drug offenders, “a population that is extremely costly
to maintain.” Yet another negative side effect of the war on drugs is the colossal waste of money
being dumped on law enforcement and incarceration, that could be used proactively for things
like education, rehabilitation, and treatment. Just one example of this is the report that “in 1990,
the states alone paid $12 billion, or $16,000 per prisoner.”
Another statistic, according to Stevenson, claims that the “American government
currently spends over 68 billion dollars a year on incarceration,” and there is additional evidence
that “drug enforcement has diverted resources from law enforcement of violent crimes and other