Violence and Popular Culture 837in 1972 in theFurmandecision that jury-imposed
capital punishment was racially biased and thus
unconstitutional, the matter seemed moot: No crim-
inal had been executed since 1967. The practice sim-
ply had fallen from favor. But in response to the
conservative demand for tough legislation against
criminals, legislators rewrote capital punishment
statutes in light of theFurmandecision, depriving
juries of discretion in sentencing. The Supreme
Court upheld these laws and capital punishment
resumed in 1976. Since then, over a thousand con-
victs have been executed.
Increasingly conservative state legislatures
imposed tougher sentences and made it more difficult
for prisoners to obtain parole. In 1973 New York
State passed laws that mandated harsh sentences for
repeat drug offenders. In 1977 California replaced its
parole system with mandatory sentencing, which
denied convicts the prospect of early release. Ten
other states adopted similar parole restrictions.
Nationwide, the proportion of convicts serving long,
mandatory sentences increased sharply.
Another manifestation of the crackdown on crime
was the increase in the nation’s prison population. In
1973 the nation’s prisons—state and federal—held
about 200,000 convicts. By 1990 the number of pris-
oners exceeded 750,000, and by 2004, 2 million.
This required the construction of a 1,000-bed prison
every week. In 1995, for the first time, states spent
more on prisons than on higher education. By 2010,
the United States incarcerated more people than any
country in the world, except perhaps communist
China, which did not disclose such information.
United States of America v. Timothy James
McVeigh—Sentencing (August 14, 1997)atwww.myhistorylab.com
Crack and Urban Gangs
Several factors intensified the problem of violent
crime, especially in the inner cities. One was a shift in
drug use. During the 1960s marijuana had become
commonly available, especially on college campuses;
this was followed by cocaine, which was far more
powerful and addictive but so expensive that few
could afford it.
During the 1980s growers of coca leaves in Peru
and Bolivia greatly expanded production. Drug traf-
fickers in Colombia devised sophisticated systems to
transport cocaine to the United States. The price of
cocaine dropped from $120 an ounce in 1981 to $50
in 1988.
Still more important was the proliferation of a
cocaine-based compound called “crack” because it
ReadtheDocumentcrackled when smoked. Crack was sold in $10 vials.
Many users found that it gave an intense spasm of
pleasure that overrode all other desires.
The lucrative crack trade led to bitter turf wars
in the inner cities; dealers hired neighborhood
youths, organized them into gangs, armed them
with automatic weapons, and told them to drive
competitors away. The term “drive-by shooting”
entered the vocabulary. A survey of Los Angeles
county in the early 1990s found that more than
150,000 young people belonged to 1,000 gangs.
Violence had become a fact of life. In 1985, before
crack had seized hold of the inner city, there were
147 murders in Washington, DC; in 1991, the figure
skyrocketed to 482.
Black on black murder had become a significant
cause of death for African Americans in their twen-
ties. In 1988 Monsta’ Kody Scott, who at age eleven
pumped shotgun blasts into rival gang members,
returned after prison to his Los Angeles neighbor-
hood. He was horrified: Gangs no longer merely
shot their rivals but sprayed them with automatic
weapons, seventy-five rounds to a clip, or blew them
away with small rockets. By 2010, 30 percent of
African American men in their twenties were in
prison, or on probation or parole. The recurrent
refrain of rap performers—that America was a
prison—had become, for many, an everyday reality.Violence and Popular Culture
Conservatives—and plenty of liberals—were also dis-
mayed by the violence of popular culture. They cited
as proof the lurid violence of the movie industry,
pointing out that in Public Enemy, reputedly the most
violent film of the 1930s, and Death Wish, a contro-
versial vigilante fantasy of 1974, the body count
reached eight. But three movies released during the
late 1980s—Robocop,Die Hard, and Rambo III—
each produced a death tally of sixty or more, nearly
one every two minutes. The trend culminated in
Natural Born Killers(1994), director Oliver Stone’s
unimaginably violent “spoof ” of media violence.
Television imitated the movies as the networks
crammed violent crime shows into prime time. In
1991 an exhaustive survey found that by the age of
eighteen, the average viewer had witnessed some
40,000 murders on TV.
Popular music also acquired a new edge. In 1981
Warner Brothers launched a television channel fea-
turing pop songs set to video. Music TV (MTV) was
an instant success; within three years, some 24 mil-
lion tuned in every day. Michael Jackson’s video