Pubdate: Mon, 10 Dec 2007 Source: Detroit Free Press (MI) Copyright: 2007 Detroit Free Press Contact: http://www.freep.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/125 Referenced: the report http://drugsense.org/url/21uS48TR Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?244 (Sentencing - United States) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Justice+Policy+Institute Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?199 (Mandatory Minimum Sentencing) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment) FIX RACIAL INJUSTICE ON DRUG CRIMES Black defendants in Michigan are far more likely to be locked up for drug offenses than white ones, underscoring the need for new policing practices and better access to urban drug treatment programs that can serve as alternatives to incarceration. Unfortunately, the disparities in how drug policies affect whites and people of color in Michigan aren't unusual. A new report by a nonprofit, Washington-based policy institute, examining nearly 200 of the nation's largest counties, found that 97% of them had racial disparities in drug incarceration rates. Overall, African Americans were 10 times more likely than whites to be imprisoned for drug offenses, even though whites and blacks sell and use illegal drugs at similar rates. But large Michigan counties did worse, the Justice Policy Institute found, with Wayne County imprisoning African Americans for drug offense at 12 times the rate of whites. Outside Detroit, the picture was even grimmer, with ratios of 30-1 in Kent County, 42-1 in Washtenaw County, 23-1 in Macomb County, and 20-1 in Oakland County. "It's one those dirty little secrets," said East Lansing Attorney F. Martin Tieber, past president of the Criminal Defense Attorneys of Michigan. "Those communities put police in low-income neighborhoods where overall crime tends to be higher. There, any illegal drug activity is more out in the open and visible to police than it is in higher-priced residential or gated-communities." Nationwide, the report, entitled "The Vortex," found that blacks, while 13% of the population, made up more than half of sentenced drug offenders in state prisons. Drug offenses have contributed to huge increases in incarceration over the last 35 years, especially among African Americans. They make up about half of the 2 million people in the nation's prisons and jails, as well as about half of Michigan's 50,000 state prisoners. Last year, drug offenses made up nearly 16% of Michigan's more than 11,000 new prison commitments. The Justice Policy Institute study did not report prior records, which could help explain some of the disparities. Even so, the gaps are so striking that they raise serious questions about the availability of treatment and diversion programs for people of color, the impact of drug laws and mandatory minimum sentences on low-income and urban communities, and the use of police resources to enforce drug laws instead of focusing on violent crime. As a start, Michigan needs to target more community corrections dollars to urban drug treatment programs that can keep people out of jail. The American ideal of equality under the law rings hollow as long as drug laws continue to have such an unequal impact. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake