Managing drug misuse and the selling of illegal drugs is an essential task for any legal system. In the U.S., the specified issue has been addressed by the U.S. drug control policy geared toward reducing the accessibility of drugs to the general audience (Rosenberg et al., 2017). The specified approach, while being rather simple, has had a significant effect on the state of the U.S. criminal justice (Rosenberg et al., 2017). While the specified impact has not always been positive, it has been undeniably profound, affecting mostly the corrections as a part of the legal system of the U.S.
Specifically, the current U.S. approach toward minimizing drug misuse focuses on individuals with substance misuse issues and on the accessibility of the drug rather than on the people peddling illegal substances. Thus, the corrections system receives an increasing range of people with substance misuse issues instead of gaining the opportunity to penalize the people at the helm of illegal drug trade industry (Rosenberg et al., 2017). For this reason, the prisons become overpopulated, mostly with people that are expressively vulnerable, especially women with substance misuse health issues.
In turn, the lack of emphasis on pursuing illegal drug traffickers instead leads to the exacerbation of the problem, putting an increased pressure on the corrections element of the legal system due to a surge in the number of sentenced individuals. Thus, due to the unique challenges that the current drug control policy accepted in the U.S. poses to reducing the levels of drug consumption and the extent of drug availability, the corrections part of the U.S. justice system is the area that has been affected to the greatest extent by the current legal approach.
Reference
Rosenberg, A., Groves, A. K., & Blankenship, K. M. (2017). Comparing Black and White drug offenders: Implications for racial disparities in criminal justice and reentry policy and programming. Journal of Drug Issues, 47(1), 132-142. Web.