Pubdate: Sun, 01 Aug 2010
Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
Copyright: 2010 Hearst Communications Inc.
Contact: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/submissions/#1
Website: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/388
Author: Keith Humphreys

CONGRESS FOUGHT CRACK DISPARITY - IT'S OUR TURN

President Obama will sign landmark legislation this week rolling back
the infamous 100-to-1 disparity that guides federal sentencing for
crack versus powder cocaine. The social justice benefits and economic
savings of this new law will be greatly magnified if the states - most
especially California - quickly follow suit.

Previously, it took only 5 grams of crack cocaine (the weight of a few
pennies) to trigger a mandatory five-year federal prison sentence
versus 500 grams of powder cocaine for the same sentence. Thousands of
crack users and low-level dealers, most of whom were African American,
were sentenced under these rules as if they were drug kingpins.

The new law eliminates mandatory minimum sentences for crack
possession outright and raises the amount required for a drug dealing
sentence to 28 grams. Reducing criminal penalties is among the hardest
things for legislators to do, so great is the fear of being labeled
soft on crime. Like junior high kids at a prom, every one looks around
anxiously hoping that someone else will have the courage to get on the
dance floor first. Give credit to Senate Judiciary Committee members
such as Jeff Sessions, Patrick Leahy, Orrin Hatch and Dick Durbin, who
had to dance alone for a number of years until their colleagues
flooded the floor.

But the states must now join the dance, because they and not the
federal government operate the vast bulk of prisons. California's
prison system alone almost equals the entire federal system in prison
population. One contributor to the enormous number of people
incarcerated is that California law sentences cocaine-related crimes
more harshly when the drug is in crack (three-to-five-year sentence)
versus powder form (two-to-four-year sentence).

Yet legislative efforts to equalize crack and powder cocaine sentences
have died session after session in Sacramento over the past decade. In
private, I have found many state legislators to be supportive of a
change, but in public they fear the "hug a thug" label if they vote
for reform.

At least one state was mirroring the federal reform even before it was
finished. Last month, South Carolina eliminated separate penalties for
crack versus powder cocaine possession as part of a broader effort to
focus its incarceration resources more wisely. No, that's not a
misprint: California is now behind South Carolina (and Texas) in
adopting progressive cocaine sentencing laws.

The reform of the federal cocaine law was passed with support from
staunch conservatives and committed liberals, defense attorneys and
former prosecutors, grassroots activists and Washington insiders, as
well as the president, the attorney general and the drug czar.
Literally every legislator in Sacramento who wanted cover could point
to someone in Washington of similar political persuasion and role who
supported reform.

In short, reform-minded state legislators can now set aside their
political anxieties and do what they know is right. The crack-powder
sentencing disparity in California is unjust, and given the level of
overcrowding in our cash-strapped prison system, unsustainable.

Keith Humphreys is a professor of psychiatry at Stanford
University. He served for the past year as senior policy adviser in
the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.
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