I think that the War on Drugs was an indirect way that
influenced the 1992 riots. In 1970s, Nixon decided that drug abuse was
something that needed to be stopped and declared “the war on drugs.” When
Reagan took office, he increased funding to the program and enforced prison
sentences for the possession of the drug, which includes cocaine, crack,
heroin, marijuana, and other drugs. Statistics from the Bureau of Justice
Statistics shows that there have been more and more arrests from possession of
drugs from the 1980s to the late 2000s. A high amount of drug users in the
1980s that has been arrested are people of color, specifically blacks and Latinos.
Police was given more and more power during this time. I perceive
that they abused that power against people of color and hid behind the reason
is to get to stop the use of drugs. There have been many reports of police
using violence against people of color which led to the beating of Rodney King
and the 1992 Riots. The beatings show all the horrors of police abuse that people couldn't prove that they did it.
-Keman Guan
References:
Gonzalez, Javier. "Roots of LA's 1992 Uprising." LA Progressive. https://www.laprogressive.com/1992-uprising/
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