Drug Decriminalization in Maryland Through an African Centered Research Paradigm- Analysis and Recommendations

households, this is a research tactic which deserves scrutiny. Politicians and theories such as Daniel
Patrick Moynahan used an analysis of female headed households as a sign of social economic
disadvantage to recommended an assimilationist politics seeking inculcate socially appropriate
patriarchal values into the Black community, including recommending more Black men be sent to
war as a tool to combat this dangerous amtriacrhical excess (Moynihan, 1965). This analysis was
roundly criticized as not only reflecting anti-black bias, but also fundamentally misunderstanding
the family structures of people fo African descent, which typically do not fit a simple, nuclear
framework. Rather than seeing the possibilities within the extended, non-nuclear family structures
within Black communities, Moynahian sees them as different and therefore deficient, and while
these researchers don’t seem to share Moynahan’s views, they use similar research methodologies
by embracing the notion of “female led households” as a salient measure of social -economic
distress. While this is clearly not the intent of the researchers, one wonders if they felt an
appropriate sense of urgency of finishing an alternative metric of socio- economic disadvantage in
order to not risk replicating the pernicious myth of there being something inherently wrong with a
frame headed household. That the researchers made this choice within the context of research
related to the War on Drugs makes the choice particularly ironic, as it is the hyper incarceration of
men, specifically Black men, which created the context for the predominance of female lead
households in the Black community (Clear, 2010b). This historical context, as well as a potential
alternative historical metric for evaluating the data (historical arrest rates) is ignored, and the
researchers isolated female headed households as if it was some neutral lens through which to
evaluate historical socio -economic disadvantage.
Researchers around drug decriminalization have also commonly makes argumentative
choices which risk limiting the scope of political analysis. The Human Rights Watch reports makes
one of these choices when it chooses to focus a large chunk of its analysis on the innocence of the
individuals swept up in the War on Drugs dragnets, writing:
“Numerous interviewees in each state we visited said they had pled guilty even though they
were innocent. Many said they did not feel they had any other real choice. Defendants,
defense attorneys, judges, and prosecutors in different jurisdictions used the language of
gambling: would the defendant “roll the dice” and go to trial? Most defendants said no,
because the odds were against them and the stakes were too high.
In Texas, where defense attorneys said laboratory scandals and faulty roadside drug tests
had raised concerns, Harris County began testing drugs in possession cases that had
already been closed. Since 2010, there have been at least 73 exonerations in Harris County
for drug possession or sale where the defendant pled guilty for something that turned out
not to be a crime at all. In 2015 alone, there were 42.279
Of the 42 exonerees in 2015, only six were white.280 Most or all had been adjudged
indigent, meaning they could not afford an attorney and had either a public defender or
another attorney appointed for them. One of those attorneys, Natalie Schultz, said a
4151 Park Heights Avenue, Suite 207, Baltimore, MD 21215 • www.lbsbaltimore.com • (410) 374-7683