Subject: Editorial: Drug Sentencing Disparities

Source:   Washington Post
Address:  1150 15th St. NW
Address:  Washington DC 20071 0001
Pubdate:  Wed, 30 Jul 1997; Page A22
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpsrv/WPlate/199707/30/006l073097idx.h
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Drug Sentencing Disparities

PRESIDENT CLINTON is moving toward greater fairness in the lopsided
system for sentencing drug offenders convicted of cocaine trafficking. 
After reviewing recommendations by his attorney general and drug czar, 
he is urging Congress to narrow the startling 1:100 ratio in sentencing 
guidelines that makes a prison term far more likely for smalltime, 
chiefly minority dealers of crack cocaine than for wealthier abusers of 
cocaine in powder form.

When the horrors of innercity crack drew attention in 1980s, new 
federal sentencing guidelines went after offenders with particular 
fervor. Despite crack's pharmacological equivalence with cocaine powder, 
there was a feeling that streetlevel sales of individual doses of the 
addictive drug wreaked a most insidious violence on urban residents  
especially the young. Hence a dealer convicted of peddling as little as 
5 grams of pipesmoked crack got the same fiveyear sentence as an 
offender caught selling 500 grams of the pricier powdered cocaine, which 
is usually snorted. Tragically, 95 percent of crack offenders are 
African American.

But recent research shows that the extratough crack sentences hamstring
judges, overcrowd prisons and encourage federal law enforcement to 
content itself with locking up drugworld small fries rather than 
striving to defeat the big distribution networks. Criminologists 
conclude that the violence linked to crack has come down and that it is 
characteristic of the drug trade as a whole rather than the form in 
which cocaine is ingested.

In 1995 the Sentencing Commission proposed equalizing sentences for the 
two types of cocaine. But that was rejected by both Congress and 
President Clinton as sending the wrong message to criminals. Most 
recently, it recommended modest adjustments that would raise the amounts 
of crack that trigger an automatic sentence and lower the minimum 
amounts for powder. President Clinton proposes that Congress simply move 
the crack minimum up to 25 grams and cut the powder cocaine minimum down 
to 250 grams (creating a new sentencing disparity of 1:10). It's a good 
starting point. Republicans on the judiciary panels appear willing to 
consider it. It's a contribution to a sensible drug policy and to racial 
fairness too. 

© Copyright 1997 The Washington Post Company