Former U.S. Marshall And DEA Agent Was Told Not To Enforce Drug Laws In White Areas

Matthew Fogg explaining the problem of race in the drug war

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Former U.S. Marshal and DEA agent was told not to enforce drug laws in white areas

Walter Einenkel

Former U.S. Marshal and DEA Agent Matthew Fogg has been speaking out against police brutality and racism and the drug war since he left law enforcement. The freethoughtprojectbreaks down part of an interview he did with Brave New Films. In it he discusses succinctly and with the clarity of a diamond one of the basic fundamental problems with how law enforcement policy works—and more specifically, policy around the war on drugs.

“We were jumping on guys in the middle of the night, all of that. Swooping down on folks all across the country, using these sorts of attack tactics that we went out on, that you would use in Vietnam, or some kind of war-torn zone. All of the stuff that we were doing, just calling it the war on drugs. And there wasn’t very many black guys in my position.

So when I would go into the war room, where we were setting up all of our drug and gun and addiction task force determining what cities we were going to hit, I would notice that most of the time it always appeared to be urban areas.

That’s when I asked the question, well, don’t they sell drugs out in Potomac and Springfield, and places like that? Maybe you all think they don’t, but statistics show they use more drugs out in those areas than anywhere. The special agent in charge, he says ‘You know, if we go out there and start messing with those folks, they know judges, they know lawyers, they know politicians. You start locking their kids up; somebody’s going to jerk our chain.’ He said, ‘they’re going to call us on it, and before you know it, they’re going to shut us down, and there goes your overtime.'”

What Fogg realized was that without the racial component, without the class component, there is no War on Drugs. Middle-class white people would not stand for the kind of abuses that were and are being routinely inflicted upon more urban areas.

You can watch part of Matthew Fogg's interview:

Alan: Blacks are arrested - and prosecuted - at least twice as often as whites for the "contraband" crimes that most often put Americans behind bars. 

If white people were incarcerated as often as blacks for the crimes both commit with the same regularity, and if blacks were incarcerated for the crimes they commit as often as whites are for those same crimes, the "black prison time" figure of 32% (above) would be cut in half and the "white prison time" figure of 6% would double.

The situation is further complicated because it is much harder for released blacks to find work than it is for released whites, making persistent black unemployment a source of recidivism.

Are there any circumstances under which you would hire Jamal ahead of James?