Congress Must Fix Racist Crack/Powder Disparity Laws

Does the number 1 equal 100? In common math it does not, but when you are talking federal drug sentencing it unfortunately does. If you distribute just five grams of crack, it carries a minimum five-year federal prison sentence. If you distribute 500 grams of powder cocaine, it carries the same sentence. This 100:1 sentencing disparity has been condemned for its racially discriminatory impact by a wide array of criminal justice and civil rights groups. Hispanics and whites make up the majority of crack cocaine users, but the majority of those convicted under crack cocaine offenses are African Americans.

After many years of heated debate over the issue of crack vs. powder cocaine sentencing disparities, the U.S. Sentencing Commission decided to ease the penalties for crack on November 1, 2007. Now they will decide on November 13 whether to apply retroactively recommended revisions to the federal guidelines that lowered the minimum sentences for crack cocaine-related offenses. If recommended, about 4,000 prisoners will be released this year by shaving an average of two years off their sentences, with thousands to follow within the next decade. In theory, it would be the largest single act to reduce the sentences of federal prisoners.

Critics were quick to exploit the age old defensive argument that the flood gates of hell would be opened if such an action were to become law. According to the Washington Post the Justice Department quickly put out a statement saying that the proposed changes to the law would put thousands of violent criminals back on the streets. The National Association of Assistant U.S. Attorneys warned that the freeing of thousands of prisoners would overburden prosecutors and U.S. marshals. Advocates rebutted saying that if the law is passed it will be a small step towards mitigating the sentence disparity between crack and powder cocaine, which disproportionately affects people of color. Even federal judges like Robert Pratt, chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa, have said that talk of an "avalanche" is exaggerated, and that work loads should not prevent creating fair sentencing in crack cocaine cases that serves the interests of justice.

In a recent editorial, the Los Angeles Times reported that Congress probably did not set out to pass racially discriminatory crack cocaine laws some twenty years ago. Whether or not these laws were created with the intention of targeting African Americans, let's make no mistake about it: it has. Jasmine Tyler, deputy director of national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance, said, "We are encouraged by the U.S. Sentencing Commission's commitment to do what is in their power to address harsh crack cocaine sentences, and we are hopeful that the Commission will apply this relief retroactively. However, only the U.S. Congress can eliminate the racist sentencing disparity between powder and crack cocaine sentences and we implore them to do so now."

The unfair sentencing that is in effect was enacted based on the many myths that surround crack use. These included media stories that told of a "crack baby" epidemic in the 1980s, stories now found to be greatly exaggerated or flat out lies. Research now shows that factors such as smoking and drinking, malnutrition, inadequate sleep, and poverty are responsible for the many pre-natal ailments associated with crack use. Criminal penalties for possession and sales of cocaine are severe. But the penalties for crack cocaine are much more severe, despite the fact that pharmacologically they are the same drug. If these suggested changes, take affect and are applied retroactively, it will do a lot to balance the scales of justice in reforming a bad law that has dished out unfair sentences to people convicted of crack cocaine offenses.

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Comments

[1will]

This is going to sound like a crazy idea to some but maybe you shouldn't do Coke or smoke Crack. Have you ever heard of anyone claiming how Coke changed their life for the better or how it made their unborn child smarter?
The 3 biggest things you can do to guarentee poverty in your life is to do drugs, drop out of school and have babies you cannot afford.
Drug dealers are parasites that prey on their community. Lock them up and increase the sentences.
I know many are going to pile on with legalizing drug arguments. Fine. Just ask yourself if it was a chemical company poisoning an inner city neighborhood the way drug dealers do if you would still say, "It's all good."

[oldpotsmuggler]

A "Drug War" Story-#3
Going to prison is a rude awakening for most folks but you could usually tell the crack cocaine guys by the absolutely lost look on their faces when they first wandered into the "law library". Being almost the only one I ever ran into in federal prison who was an actual law school graduate, I was often a person that they would seek out. Man, did I run across a lot of sad situations.

One guy still sticks out in my mind because his story was all too real and unbelievable at the same time. Mid twenties black dude. A little college, but no degree. Still, he put together a lower middle class lifestyle for a wife and child, grinding it out in the straight world. But, like he said, they were more going without than going places, and lots of guys in the world he came from seemed to be doing a lot better, doing a lot less.

Young, black, and in So. Cal. I guess you can get drugs if you want to. And then there was a family member in Texas who, somehow, had a strong outlet for some rock. Long story short, they did a couple of deals. This was when bounties were first being offered in the USPS for bagging drug packages, and they were trying to go the "easy" route. The guy was also trying to be kind enough to rock the stuff himself so the folks in Texas didn't have to. If the amount on the Indictment wasn't rocked, it would barely have been enough to trigger the 5 year mandatory minimum. Instead, the guideline for the same weight in "crack" was 28 years. Remember back in the eighties when we had "zero tolerance" for what was essentially a black lifestyle crime?

But he was at least allowed to cop a deal where he took the full 28 in return for his wife getting charges dropped. Also, with good time, I think the guy only has about another eight or nine years to go. Weird!

[1will]

Why not just make the sentence for powdered cocaine match that of crack (instead of the other way around)?

[Quaoar]

I agree. Both crack and powder cocaine should be fully legalized. After all, if it's good enough for the chimp-in-chief, it should be legally available to all.

[realitytrumpsbull]

I don't think you're going to win the 'war on drugs' by locking people up. To do that, you'd
have to start building prisons today and keep
at it until you were creating 100,000 new
beds a year, at least. Maybe, alternatively,
to 'win' the 'war', start with some common
sense.

a) start getting ready to close the US/Mexico
border. Rush Limbaugh can operate his OWN
vacuum cleaner, but public safety and border
security for both the United States and Mexico
come first. People can deal without their
maquiladoras or whatever for a full year.
Closing the border would stop ALL traffic,
including the drug traffic.
b) Start having town hall forums in cities
across the country to raise community drug
awareness, from Washington, D.C. all the way
to Sacramento. Also, 'lead by example' applies,
so if there's someone like Barry getting high
on the taxpayer dime, they need to be fired,
charged, etc. If it's OK for the mayor...
Crack and cocaine are destructive, not just
to your health, but to the entire community.
Maybe people make money off of all this, but
it's the wrong way, and the impact can last
for years, not only on the person doing the
drugs, but again on the community. When more
civic and government and church leaders stand
up and ask the public to help reduce the use
of drugs, get the message out etc., then the
use will diminish. Otherwise, you can build
jails from here to the horizon and it will
continue.

That's my .05 worth...

[EspressoAtNoon]

Not sure I agree. It seems like crack dealers are offering a cheap dangerous product that can harm a lot of inner city minority citizens. It's so affordable and is so highly addicted that it can destroy an entire neighborhood in a short time. So going after these dealers, if anything, protects the African inner city community.

Cocaine is so expensive that most inner city kids can't afford it, so the ones getting hurt by this are often rich kids. By making cocaine dealers serve lesser sentences only hurts the rich affluent white community since these rich kids will have dealers less likely to be on the streets.

I think they should penalize both types of dealers equally harshly. But I don't think this hurts the black community like you're suggesting. If I was a black parent living in a poor inner city area, I'd want harsh laws that would get those crack dealers off the streets and away from my kids.

[EnderCraig]

Hey justice department! If these criminals were so violent then why did you incarcerate them for drug offenses? Don't we all agree that violence is more heinous than drug crime? It seems a typical and accepted attitude of the criminal justice system that too many people are free. They just can't catch us all the way the laws are now, so they just need to take away a few liberties, and incarcerate a few more minorities. Always needing more cops, more agents, more powers. What would be the reaction at your job if you told your boss that you were working really hard but you need two more people to get it done? And a helicopter.

Its time for a leader to step forward and stop the hysteria. Come out and say that the war on drugs is a war on American people. Many of whom are poor and black. That war is now over and the federal government has lost. It's time to release the prisoners of that war. If any of these people are violent it shouldn't be that hard to convict them of that. They want to target ten million illegal Mexican immigrants because they don't want their trillion dollar enforcement machine to get caught standing around. They've bumped up against civil rights in enforcing drug laws and they simply can't catch many more dopers. If enforcement wants to continue to grow as an industry, they'll need someone to arrest.

I need to point out that felons can't vote. Millions of Americans have been incarcerated for the same drug crime that George W Bush committed when he possessed cocaine. Is that not a powerful parallel of the class and race disparity in our country? None of these millions of felons whose lives have been so directly changed by the drug war are entitled to a voice in any political debate. They were born here, went to our schools, are they really not Americans?