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This Strikes Us …
A Sojourner’s Truth Editorial
On numerous occasions we have written about
the inequities in the federal sentencing laws on crack
cocaine and the hypocrisy of politicians who sought in 1986
and in subsequent years to stem trafficking in crack by
imposing draconian penalties for those who were accused of
such offenses.
Finally, Congress reversed course last week
and reduced the disparities between crack cocaine sentences
and those meted out for powder cocaine. It’s not a perfect
bill. The disparity has not been eliminated altogether, but
it is a step in the right direction.
A little history about the law. In 1986,
Congress, in a panic over reports that a new drug, crack
cocaine, was particularly addictive and produced especially
violent reactions in users – compared to the powdery
substance – passed legislation decreeing that anyone
convicted of a crack cocaine offense should be sentenced as
if he or she had been responsible for 100 times that amount
of powder cocaine. So, if a street peddler were caught with
a mere five grams of crack, for example, he would be
sentenced as if he held 500 grams of powder cocaine.
With the addition of mandatory sentencing
laws, that meant that such an offense would bring the
accused a sentence of five years for an amount – five grams
– that could easily have been for personal use.
Virtually no one disputed the fact that the
heightened penalties were directed squarely against the
African-American community which received the bulk of the
notoriety when the drug surfaced.
What quickly did surface as a major dispute,
however, was the original analysis of the differences
between crack and powder. Chemically the two substances are
identical. This was a fact conceded time and time again in
courts around the land but because of the nature of the
sentencing laws, particularly the mandatory minimum
sentences, federal judges hands were tied.
As a result of the disparities, over the
years more than 80 percent of those sentenced by the federal
judges for crack cocaine offenses have been black
Last week, finally, Congress approved a bill
that changed that mandatory sentence of five years from five
grams to 28 – the equivalent of an ounce – the amount that
many experts say an average dealer might carry around. A
disparity still exists, however, the new law will fix the
ration at about 18 to one.
There have been so many things wrong about
this approach to sentencing, that it’s difficult to wrap
one’s arms around the total.
First, of course, there was the fixation on
the black community, both in the legislation and the
enforcement. Contrary to what we see on popular television
shows, federal law enforcement has so often been geared to
piling up conviction numbers. More often than not, those
accused of trafficking offenses were rewarded with lighter
sentences by turning in those lower in the organization than
those above them. That’s how so many street level dealers
have been caught and sentenced.
Second, there is the myth, even popular among
those who have been fighting the sentencing disparities,
that crack cocaine was the drug of choice only in the
African-American community. In fact, according to statistics
compiled over the years by the U.S. Justice Department, the
majority community accounted for approximately 70 percent of
crack cocaine use.
Third, and these are in no particular order,
there is that hypocrisy we have seen in politicians of all
stripes, conservative and liberal, over this issue. All of
the above have been tripping over each other for years in
order not to appear soft on crime, no matter the cost to a
variety of communities, in a nation that incarcerates a
higher percentage of its population than any other on earth.
There is no better example of such hypocrisy
than President Bill Clinton. During Clinton’s terms the
sentences for drug trafficking really took flight and the
building of new prisons became a major industry.
Clinton waited until he was leaving office to
admit that the federal sentencing laws were drastically
unfair and that he should have addressed them early in his
tenure.
Finally, there is the whole notion in this
country that incarceration is the only answer to crime. In
fact, as we look at our approach to crime and the statistics
– the U.S. incarcerates the largest number of people in the
world; the rate is four times the world average; the U.S.
imprisons the most women in the world – the fact is that
crime rates and incarceration rates simply do not correlate.
Advocates of such incarceration policies
argue that crime would be a lot worse if we did not penalize
at such a high rate. Such an argument overlooks the cost of
incarceration to individuals, families and communities and
the very obvious fact that a high rate of incarceration
perpetuates a high rate of incarceration.
There is no better example of incarceration
policies run amok than that of our approach to crack
cocaine. Last year, close to 1,500 people were sentenced to
mandatory minimum sentences for possession of crack cocaine
amounts between five and 28 grams. Almost 3,000 people per
year will be affected by the change in the crack cocaine
laws, estimates Julie Stewart, president of Families Against
Mandatory Minimums (FAMM), reducing the average sentence in
these cases from 109 months to 79 months.
For years, only members of the Congressional
Black Caucus spoke out in favor of changing the penalties.
It’s a relief to see that enough other congressmen have
finally seen the light.
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