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The War on Drugs —Public Enemy Number One
At the start of this era, the country is still reeling from the upheavals of the previous decade. The Vietnam War is still in progress, and opposition to it is growing. The Civil Rights movement has inspired other groups of disenfranchised and marginalized people to organize. Prisoners join women, Native Americans, and lesbians and gays in fighting for their rights. Crime, which skyrocketed during the 1960s, has become a substantial public concern. The Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, established in 1969, helps local and state police incorporate up-to-date technology in their enforcement efforts. This creates a way to channel federal money for law enforcement into state coffers. Geraldo Rivera's 1972 Willowbrook exposé on the abuses in institutions housing the mentally ill shocks the nation, beginning a decade — long effort to deinstitutionalize this population. Despite efforts to create alternative treatment programs, the criminal justice system absorbs many of these people. Nixon recognizes the scope of the country's drug problem and at first supports a large-scale treatment approach. But the political currency of the drug issue is too tantalizing. Enforcement supersedes treatment — drugs become "public enemy number one." Interdiction and incarceration become the primary solutions. The Watergate scandal ends Nixon¹s presidency. Public disillusionment rises, and inflation and an energy crisis begin to take precedence. But drugs and crime will resurface as America's top priority at the close of the decade, when Ronald Reagan achieves an overwhelming victory in the presidential election. |