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TechnoratiJustice Department Urges Equalizing Drug Sentences
Justice Department officials this morning endorsed for the first time proposed legislation that would eliminate vast sentencing disparities for possession of powdered versus rock cocaine, an inequality that civil rights groups say has disproportionately affected poor and minority defendants.
Newly appointed Criminal Division chief Lanny A. Breuer told a Senate Judiciary Committee panel this morning that the Obama administration would support bills to equalize punishment for offenders accused of possessing the drug in either form, fulfilling one of the president's campaign pledges.
Breuer explicitly called on Congress to act this term to "completely eliminate" the sentencing disparity.
The issue has received attention from both political parties, but never before have top law enforcement officials backed legislative reforms, according to drug control analysts.
"Now is the time for us to reexamine federal cocaine sentencing policy, from the perspective of both fundamental fairness and safety," Breuer told the Judiciary subcommittee on crime and drugs. He said the sentencing issues would be among those considered by a Justice Department panel that is examining a broad array of criminal justice topics related to charging, sentencing and prisoner treatment.
The announcement is part of a broader White House effort to move away from failed strategies to combat the war on drugs and to shift more money into treatment, counseling and job training. That outlook has been endorsed by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and former Seattle police chief R. Gil Kerlikowske, who awaits Senate confirmation as Obama's new drug czar.
Conflict over the cocaine possession laws, which date to 1986, has simmered for years. Even the U.S. Sentencing Commission has pushed Congress for more than a decade to address sentencing disparities.
At the heart of the debate are vastly unequal penalties for carrying cocaine in powder form as opposed to rock form, commonly known as crack. The inequality has come to be known as the "100 to 1" ratio, in which possession of five grams of crack, the weight of two small sugar cubes, triggers a mandatory five-year prison term, while a person carrying 500 grams of powder cocaine would receive the same sentence.
The penalties have had far-reaching consequences, according to police chiefs, federal judges and drug control operatives.
Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) noted this morning that more than half of federal inmates are locked up for drug-related crimes, including high ratios of African American offenders. In 2007, Durbin said, 82 percent of people convicted on crack possession charges were black, and only 9 percent were white.
"These racial disparities profoundly undermine trust in our criminal justice system and have a deeply corrosive effect on the relationship between law enforcement and minority communities," Durbin said.
U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton, representing the Judicial Conference, called the drug sentencing disparity "one of the most important issues confronting the criminal justice system today."
Walton, who is black, told the subcommittee: "No one can appreciate the agony of having to enforce a law that one believes to be fundamentally unfair to individuals who look like me."
In practice, according to the advocacy group Families Against Mandatory Minimums, the sentencing disparity has a discriminatory impact on African Americans who serve sentences on average nearly two years longer than people sentenced under powder cocaine laws.
One client of FAMM is Eugenia Jennings, the mother of three children, who was convicted of trading small amounts of crack cocaine for designer clothes on two different occasions. She was charged as a career offender and sentenced to more than 20 years in prison in 2001.
Cedric Parker, Jennings's brother, planned to tell the Senate panel this morning that had his sister been caught with powder cocaine, she would be preparing to return home because that offense carried far less prison time. Jennings is not scheduled for release until 2019.
"This hearing gives new hope to thousands . . . who have loved ones serving harsh sentences for low-level, nonviolent drug offenses," said Mary Price, vice president and general counsel at FAMM.
The origins of the tough sentences reside in the hothouse environment of the mid-1980s, when many urban communities suffered outbreaks of violence and drug use stemming from the introduction of high-quality cocaine into local drug markets. At the time, authorities believed that crack cocaine possessed unusually addictive powers, an idea that has since been dispelled, said Asa Hutchinson, former administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration.
"When significant numbers of African Americans on the street question the fairness of our criminal justice system, then it becomes more difficult for the officer on the street to do his or her duty under the law," Hutchinson said in his prepared remarks for the subcommittee today.
John F. Timoney, the police chief in Miami, this morning called the current state of the drug law an "unmitigated disaster" and said he was "pleading with the Congress to right a wrong."
13 Comments so far
Show All"Justice Department officials this morning endorsed for the first time proposed legislation that would eliminate vast sentencing disparities for possession of powdered versus rock cocaine, an inequality that civil rights groups say has disproportionately affected poor and minority defendants."
How about just abolishing the sentencing for drugs period?
Oh-My-God! Can it be? The politcs of sanity and reason will at least prevail? This day has finally come? Thank God!
That's change you can believe in.
What is the logical premise of anti drug laws? Putting a person in jail for using is NOT protecting them. It can't be the personal danger of drugs that is being curbed or we wouldn't have bungie jumping, parachuting, skiing, swimming,flying etc. as these also threaten the lives of the people doing them. It can't be to protect non users from criminal acts for no one need steal to buy that which grows freely. Amazing that "The Land of The Free" has a higher percentage of its people imprisoned than other western nations and yet we want "equalized" anti drug laws instead of decriminalization! Take the profit out and harder drug use will be curtailed if that is even a reasonable goal and it is much cheaper to maintain the useless on welfare than in a prison learning better crimes to finance expensive unlawful drug habits that would be virtually free in a free country. It would be better if all prohibition laws had to undergo a "need" test. It could have already saved a lot of arguing laws regarding sex, drugs, sunday shopping, homo marriage,etc. saving that money for social improvements in education and health. Instead we have internal laws so draconian that we wind up in conflict within other countries borders selling guns to allow the carnage to continue while the U.S. prison population grows and Mexicans die.
Bout time ! Considering that "crack" is a designer drug of questionable origion.(Google San Jose Mercury Times crack and the CIA.)Designed to make Cocain cheap and smokable in the most addictive form possible,and also considering that the government may be complicit in this this bill is 20 years late!But its about time ,and money,and race! peace
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
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Its about time and a good start to bringing the whole thing into perspective.
Gee, if they make it retroactive does that mean Shrub can go to jail? Oh that's right, the rich don't go to jail.
Walton, who is black, told the subcommittee: "No one can appreciate the agony of having to enforce a law that one believes to be fundamentally unfair to individuals who look like me." He's right. If you haven't been in their shoes, you cannot know how it feels. Every parent knows losing a child is their greatest fear, but they don't know what it is like to live through it. They only know they don't want to find out.
I have to give kudoes to the Obama administration for going forward on this. Including the focus on treatment over punishment. Maybe some sanity will emerge around our drug laws. I haven't been thinking nice thoughts about his administration lately, so this is good news.
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
The drug wars started as racist moves on the part of all white gov't officials. Is it any surprise that they are STILL working that way?
In 1913, CA passed the first anti cannabis law in the country, specifically so that it could "legally" kick out the Mexicans. In 1917, CO, NV and a few other southwestern states did the same thing for the same reason. By the time things got to the federal level, we "had" to pass a federal law to keep white women from being "coerced" into sleeping with black men.
The laws against opium were passed to harass the Chinese. Anti cocaine laws were passed to harass blacks. Hell, even the prohibition of alcohol was passed to harass the Irish.
It's NO surprise to anyone who knows their history that the drug wars are actually laws set up to harass minorities. It gives the cops the excuse they need to bother anyone, but notice that they are predominantly jailing minorities. By about 10 to 1, minorities are locked up while whites are given probation and stolen from using THAT system.
If the SCOTUS had ANY sense at all, they would eliminate the entire drug war and put an end to this over reaching, nanny state nonsense. It would eliminate the need to even HAVE a for profit "just us" system, and it would go a long way towards reinstating JUSTICE as our primary reason for locking people up. There is NO justice in locking up someone who isn't hurting anyone, or creating any victims. As it is now, we are creating victims by destroying people's lives with these stupid, ineffective laws.
The ONLY people who benefit from the current situation are the extortion racket we call the prison system, the crooks and the politicians (who I consider to be one and the same). Time to take away their gravy train, as it's killing the country's soul and not benefiting us at all. it's just costing us more than we can afford, both in terms of money and lives. It's turned the cops against us, and turned us against them. It's doing FAR more damage than it's worth, and it's time to end it. And not just because the sentences are stupid, but because the whole thing is stupid.
Great post.
as long as there are for-profit-prisons, drugs will remain illegal and the bottom of the that food chain, i.e. the end user, will receive disproportionate sentences.
as long as there are for-profit-prisons, drugs will remain illegal and the bottom of the that food chain, i.e. the end user, will receive disproportionate sentences.
each individual has inherent rights and responsibilities, and among those are the personal choices about one's mind and body...some choices have simply, and selectively, been forcibly removed by those who would to further their own agendas...it was, and is, wrong, and should stop altogether...these choices are nobody's business but the individual involved...no one should have their liberty curtailed by any other for such choices...