'Community Dignity Takings': Dehumanization and Infantilization of Communities Resulting from the War on Drugs

The half-century long “War on Drugs” and its “tough on crime” policies have wreaked havoc upon both individuals convicted of offenses and their communities. The impact on communities in this figurative war can be as devastating as the aftermath of a literal war, but that impact often goes unconsidered and unmeasured. We should consider this collateral damage a form of taking – a community dignity taking – like many other collateral impacts of policy. Bernadette Atuahene, in her seminal work on the subject, defined a “dignity taking” and included within that definition situations where a community is damaged through the deprivation of the dignity of its members. To date, scholars have typically applied this analysis to situations where real and personal property have been taken from communities, but not to collateral consequences of policy such as social stigma. In previous work, I have applied the concept of a dignity taking to the collateral consequences of conviction on individuals. In this paper, I propose an extension of that analysis to the communities to which those individuals belong. Through this framework, it becomes possible for communities to express the damage done to them through these policies.