Pubdate: Sun, 30 Dec 2007
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright: 2007 Los Angeles Times
Section: A
Contact:  http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/248
Author: Richard B. Schmitt and David G. Savage, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?244 (Sentencing - United States)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/crack+cocaine
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Sentencing+Commission

CHIPPING AT TOUGH CRACK SENTENCING

Laws Were Ineffective and the Drug's Ravages Overblown, Experts Say.

WASHINGTON -- In the spring of 1986, lawmakers had become alarmed by 
reports of urban crime waves linked to crack, then a new and highly 
addictive form of cocaine. News reports were full of images of 
writhing "crack babies" deeply addicted to the drug through their 
mothers, doomed to "a life of certain suffering, of probable 
deviance, of permanent inferiority," as one columnist observed.

The sudden death that June of basketball star Len Bias galvanized 
Washington into passing extraordinarily strict drug laws. Selling as 
little as 5 grams of crack would bring a mandatory five-year federal 
prison term, with no possibility of parole.

Now those laws are being questioned, and in some cases relaxed, in 
the face of evidence that some predictions about the ravages of crack 
were overblown -- and that the harsh penalties were ineffective.

This month, the U.S. Sentencing Commission voted unanimously to 
reduce the prison terms of as many as 19,500 federal inmates 
convicted of crack-related crimes. The decision, which came a day 
after the U.S. Supreme Court gave federal judges discretion to 
deviate from strict drug sentencing guidelines, marked a milestone in 
the two-decade debate over the drug.

Though there is no debate that crack harms users, the grim forecasts 
of empty lives for the children of crack-smoking mothers were 
overblown. The effects "have not been as devastating as originally 
believed," the National Institute on Drug Abuse said in testimony 
before the sentencing commission last year.

Crack has the same effect on the body over time as powder cocaine, 
and poses "less risk" than exposure to alcohol or cigarettes, said 
Harolyn M. E. Belcher, a developmental pediatrician at the Kennedy 
Krieger Institute for disabled children in Baltimore.

The stiff penalties also did not curb violent crime. Homicides 
nationwide rose despite the new laws, increasing by about 25% from 
1985 to 1993.

"It was counterproductive," said Alfred Blumstein, a crime expert at 
Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. "The replacements that got 
recruited into the markets to replace the people that were being 
shipped off to prison were a lot more dangerous than the people they replaced."

The violence eventually declined, but Blumstein said that was largely 
because crack failed to attract new customers in light of its 
reported health dangers. "Youthful offenders have moved on to other 
drugs," he said.

It's also debatable whether the tougher laws had much effect on the 
drug trade. Resilient drug markets continue to confound 
law-enforcement efforts. After Congress enacted stiff penalties for 
crack, the drug's street price declined for several years, making it, 
in theory, more available.

None of that was foreseen in the summer of 1986, when crack was 
rapidly becoming the cheap wine of the drug trade, a lower-cost 
cocaine alternative for poor neighborhoods. A tipping point in the 
debate was the death of Bias, a University of Maryland basketball 
player who suffered cardiac arrest blamed on a cocaine overdose two 
days after he had been drafted by the Boston Celtics.

"The death of Bias was the fuse that set off this explosion" of 
activity in Congress, said Eric E. Sterling, who was then counsel for 
the House subcommittee on crime. According to Sterling, lawmakers 
believed that "if a healthy, superb athlete like him can be struck 
down by this drug, this country will be devastated if we don't act."

Although it was never determined whether Bias had been using crack or 
powder cocaine, then-House Speaker Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill Jr. made 
crack a top priority when Congress returned from summer recess. 
Democrats, hoping to retake control of the Senate that fall, seized 
on the issue as a way to show their stripes in attacking crime.

The resulting legislation was tougher than had been recommended by 
the Reagan administration.

Mandatory prison terms were set making a drug dealer selling crack 
subject to the same sentence as one selling 100 times as much powder cocaine.

Selling 50 grams of crack triggered a 10-year term in federal prison, 
the same sentence for selling 5,000 grams of powder cocaine.

Thousands of young African American men, the predominant users and 
sellers of crack, were given lengthy prison terms.

What's more, in their zeal to stem crack's destructive effect, 
Congress set the amount that would trigger criminal charges so low 
that prisons soon became jammed with low-level dealers and operators. 
About half the 4,000 to 5,000 people charged with crack offenses in 
federal court every year are street dealers or couriers rather than 
wholesale suppliers.

By the mid-1990s, violent street crime associated with the drug was 
starting to abate and the dire, media-driven predictions of 
generations of crack babies were suspect. The sentencing commission 
began to recognize problems with the drug laws, and voted in 1995 to 
make the guidelines for crack sentences the same as for powder cocaine.

But Congress resoundingly intervened and blocked the more lenient 
crack penalties.

The panel also recommended that lawmakers abolish the harsh mandatory 
minimum sentences for crack offenders. But that recommendation, like 
several it would make in ensuing years, went unheeded.

"I thought, 10 years ago, as the [crack] issue lost its prominence, 
one would see more rational decision-making," said Peter Reuter, 
professor of public policy at the University of Maryland and 
co-director of the drug policy research center at RAND. Instead, he 
said, "the issue lost its saliency," and "politicians lost interest."

In an October 2000 interview, then-President Clinton said the failure 
to address the disparity between crack and powder cocaine sentences 
was one of the major regrets of his administration.

Richard P. Conaboy, a federal judge in Scranton, Pa., who was 
chairman of the sentencing commission in 1995, laments the missed 
opportunity. "I was quite naive at the time," he said. "I was led to 
believe that the report would be accepted."

Conaboy said the actions taken this month were steps in the right 
direction, if less sweeping than his panel's recommendation. "Our 
form of government does take a long, long time to bring about any 
change," he said. "There is an inclination . . . not to admit that 
you were not exactly right the first time."

Despite relaxation of the guidelines, people caught with crack 
cocaine still will face long prison terms. Congress so far has 
refused to retreat from the "mandatory minimum" laws that require 
prison terms of at least five years for possession of crack cocaine.

But some lawmakers have been pressing for change. Calling it "a 
terrible flaw in the criminal justice system," Sen. Joseph R. Biden 
Jr. (D-Del.), a Democratic presidential candidate, proposes 
eliminating the 100-to-1 disparity between powder and crack cocaine.

Reps. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas) and Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) 
have introduced similar bills in the House.

Sens. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) and Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) -- have 
proposed raising the amount of crack cocaine that would trigger a 
mandatory prison term.

But none of these proposals has won approval from the judiciary 
committees of the House or Senate.

Mark Kleiman, a UCLA professor of public policy and a drug policy 
expert, said: "Nobody [in Congress] wants to go home and explain why 
they let the crack dealers out of prison." 
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