Supreme Court Weighs Fate Of Crack Dealers
WASHINGTON -- A couple of convicted crack cocaine dealers caught between old and new sentencing regimes had their cases argued before the Supreme Cour...
WASHINGTON -- A couple of convicted crack cocaine dealers caught between old and new sentencing regimes had their cases argued before the Supreme Cour...
Julie Stewart | Posted 01.02.2012
Our federal prisons are already operating at 140 percent of their capacity. To slow this problem, the report urges Congress to avoid passing new laws that will waste expensive prison space on low-risk offenders.
HuffingtonPost.com | John Rudolf | Posted 12.29.2011
NEW YORK -- In 1986, as the crack cocaine epidemic ravaged America's inner cities, a Democratic Congress passed legislation dictating harsh mandatory ...
Elon James White | Posted 08.31.2011
Laura W. Murphy | Posted 08.30.2011
Following much thought and careful deliberation, the United States Sentencing Commission took another step toward creating fairness in federal sentencing.
Rev. Al Sharpton | Posted 08.02.2011
Somewhere in a U.S. prison today, a young Black man sits behind bars counting down the days till he sees freedom. He has become hardened and likely more dangerous while his White cellmate was released years prior for virtually the same crime.
AP | JESSICA GRESKO | Posted 07.31.2011
WASHINGTON — A year ago, a drug dealer caught with 50 grams of crack cocaine faced a mandatory 10 years in federal prison. Today, new rules cut ...
Hamedah Hasan | Posted 05.25.2011
The president can exercise his executive clemency power to right historical wrongs by commuting the remaining sentences of those of us who have fallen through the cracks. I hope he does.
Julie Stewart | Posted 05.25.2011
Congress ignored the temptation of "soft on crime" mudslinging and instead listened to the public, the experts, the courts, and the people who have lost to these racially discriminatory and overly harsh crack sentences.
HuffingtonPost.com | Lucia Graves | Posted 05.25.2011
Before coming to Capitol Hill, Rep. Keith Ellison spent 16 years as a trial lawyer dealing with hundreds of cases involving cocaine arrests. After Pre...
AP | Posted 05.25.2011
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Tuesday signed a bill reducing the disparity between federal mandatory sentences for convictions for crac...
The Huffington Post | Nick Wing | Posted 05.25.2011
Congress passed a historic ruling Wednesday, voting on a Senate-approved measure to pare down a massively prejudiced 100-to-1 sentencing disparity in ...
Laura W. Murphy | Posted 05.25.2011
Anyone who works on reforming the criminal justice system can attest to the fact that such efforts often take years of commitment and dedication befor...
AP | JIM ABRAMS | Posted 05.25.2011
WASHINGTON — Legislation approved by the Senate on Wednesday would significantly reduce the disparity in sentences handed out to those convicted...
Laura W. Murphy | Posted 05.25.2011
Late on Wednesday evening, the U.S. Senate passed, by unanimous consent no less, a long-overdue bill that will help to reform one of the most egreg...
The American Prospect | Posted 05.25.2011
Earlier this morning, Sen. Dick Durbin announced that he and Sen. Jeff Sessions had reached a "compromise" in the Senate gym over Durbin's bill, which...
Bill Piper | Posted 05.25.2011
President Obama spoke for millions when he said drug use should be treated as a health issue instead of a criminal justice issue. He has failed, however, to change the drug war budget in a meaningful way.
Essence | Posted 05.25.2011
The walls inside the U.S. Justice Department headquarters are painted with themed murals depicting law and lawlessness (a couple being robbed at gunpo...
Anthony Papa | Posted 05.25.2011
Sentencing disparities between powder and crack cocaine cases have produced the greatest racial disparity in the American criminal justice system.
Arianna Huffington | Posted 05.25.2011
When it comes to addressing America's disastrous war on drugs, the Obama administration is saying the right things. But when it comes to putting its rhetoric into action, the administration has faltered.
Anthony Papa | Posted 05.25.2011
The knee-jerk conclusion by some is that more black and brown people are in prison because the commit the majority of the crimes. But a closer inspection paints a vastly different picture.
McClatchy Newspapers | Marisa Taylor | Posted 05.25.2011
As federal courts begin the unprecedented task of deciding whether thousands of prisoners should receive lower sentences for crimes involving crack co...
Washington Post | Posted 05.25.2011
An independent panel is considering reducing the sentences of inmates incarcerated in federal prisons for crack cocaine offenses, which would make tho...
HuffingtonPost.com | Mike Sacks | Posted 04.17.2012