Racial disparity in drug sentencing has been a widespread problem in the United States since the War on Drugs in the early 1980s. prevalent before this time, but minorities became targets of drug crimes in surprising numbers around this time. There are several hypotheses to explain this alarming situation, but the bottom line remains that racism is the leading cause of racial disparity in drug-related sentencing. Inner-city minorities of low income and socioeconomic status, who find themselves caught in a downward spiral, are the easiest targets for the government to point the finger at when it comes to America's drug problems. Statistics will show that even if more white people use illegal drugs in the United States, more African Americans and other minorities will be sentenced, and more harshly than their white counterparts, for the same crimes. by specific ethnic group is a good start for research, as it highlights real drug problems by minority group. The study showed that African American adolescents have lower rates of drug use than whites, but suffer more drug-related health problems than any other ethnic group. It has also been suggested that drug use causes criminal behavior in African American communities. Asians and Pacific Islanders may be less likely to seek treatment services because they are not culturally appropriate. Higher rates of alcohol abuse are more likely in their home country than in the United States because treatment options are more actively used. Hispanic drug use is one of the highest among the U.S. population, in part due to... middle of paper ...... drug-related criminal offenses. It also highlights how African Americans and Hispanics were treated more harshly than whites when detained, whether they had a public rather than private defender, and whether or not they had a criminal record. Factors that also increased their conviction rate and treatment while in custody were being young, male, and unemployed. African Americans and Hispanics were also more likely to be detained before indictment, convicted, and sentenced to prison than whites. Although this newspaper shed light on the racial disparity in the sentencing process, the method used to gather the information for this newspaper used only three data sources. He gave factual statistics, but I would agree with the authors hypothesis that race/ethnicity cannot be fully explained by taking into account an offender's background, age, or gender..