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Unequal Under Law: Race in the War on Drugs. By Doris Marie Provine. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2007. Pp. viii+207. $18.00 paper.
In recent years, a number of scholars have documented the accu- mulating consequences of America's decades-long commitment to imprisonment as the primary response to drug offenses. In Unequal Under Law, Doris Marie Provine adds to this important literature with her examination of the racialized histories of America's harsh- est drug policies. In six engaging and clearly written chapters, Provine uncovers how race and racism shaped America's wars on drugs in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. From the nation's early wars against alcohol and opiates, when politicians and reformers explicitly identified the racial and ethnic targets of drug legislation, to the "colorblind" rhetoric that supported the introduction and maintenance of some of the harshest drug penalties in American history, Provine highlights how race and racism shape crime and justice policies. The continuing and often unpredictable influence of race on crime policy during the post-civil rights era is a peculiar paradox that Provine interrogates expertly. Unequal Under Law explains how race-neutral political and popular discourse, combined with old-time fears about problematic populations, facilitated the introduction of anti-crack legislation. This legislation focused nearly exclusively on arresting and imprisoning black men who sell crack cocaine in poor, urban neighborhoods across the country. Unequal Under Law also...