The War on Drugs amplified but did not create drug imprisonment disparities.

Evidence

Several aspects of these trends are at odds with prevailing public discourse. First, these trends demonstrate that the War on Drugs, which was launched in earnest in the mid-1980s, did not create racial disparities in drug imprisonment. Racial disparities in imprisonment are evident prior to the drug war. Yet, racial disparities exploded after the War on Drugs expanded. — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 1045

Categorization

• XREF: Directly serves the reader’s further-reading volume on racial prejudice in criminal justice — challenges the common ‘drug war created the gap’ framing. — connects to: The Civil War marked a legal-epoch divide but did not cause the industrial age — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law: An Introduction, 272
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law: A Definitive Look at…, 1045