Abstract

A moral panic erupted during the 1980s among the American public when stories about crack cocaine saturated the media. In this thesis I analyze how discursive productions of deviancy operated in the CBS news documentary: 48 Hours on Crack Street (1986) and other print news sources at that time. Three salient characters that appear in news media discourse during the panic are "crack mothers," "crack babies," and "Black male dope dealers." The news media frightened the public with such representations (among others) and the public urged politicians to get tough on drug crime to control the so-called crack cocaine plague. Politicians responded with omnibus drug reforms that established mandatory minimum sentences and the controversial 100:1 sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine. The enforcement of the draconian drug laws that were passed in response to the crack cocaine panic continues to be a contributing factor to America's current prison crisis. Moreover, the laws are enforced in ways that disproportionately punish the poor and African-Americans. I conclude that the criminal disenfranchisement of millions of people since the 1980s relates to the media's representation of the crack cocaine "epidemic" and the legislation that was passed to control illicit drugs such as crack cocaine.

Notes

If this is your Honors thesis, and want to learn how to access it or for more information about readership statistics, contact us at STARS@ucf.edu

Thesis Completion

2011

Semester

Spring

Advisor

Schippert, Claudia

Degree

Bachelor of Arts (B.A.)

College

College of Arts and Humanities

Degree Program

Religious Studies

Subjects

Arts and Humanities -- Dissertations, Academic;Dissertations, Academic -- Arts and Humanities

Format

PDF

Identifier

CFH0003822

Language

English

Access Status

Open Access

Length of Campus-only Access

None

Document Type

Honors in the Major Thesis

Download

Included in

Religion Commons

Share

COinS