Via Global Investment Watch, a letter from Color of Change, asking for folks to contact their congresscritters.
This bill, if it passes, is a good example of how the marginal difference between Democrats and Republicans, marginal though it is, matters. (But even if this bill passes, eliminating one devastating sentencing disparity, other, more subtle sentencing disparities will remain.)
The remainder of this post is the letter from Color of Change.
* * *
The so-called “war on drugs” has created a national disaster: 1 in 15 Black adults in America are behind bars. It’s not because we commit more crime but largely because of unfair sentencing rules that treat 5 grams of crack cocaine–the kind found in poor Black communities–the same as 500 grams of powder cocaine, which is the kind found in White and wealthier communities. These sentencing laws are destroying communities across the country and have done almost nothing to reduce the level of drug use and crime.
We now have an opportunity to end this disaster once and for all. A bill is moving through Congress right now that would end the sentencing disparity. It’s critical that members of Congress see support from everyday folks. Join us in asking our representatives in the House and Senate to push for its passage, and please ask your friends and family to do the same. It only takes a moment:
http://colorofchange.org/crack/?id=2206-426821
At every step in the criminal justice system, Black people are at a disadvantage — we are more likely to be arrested, charged, and convicted, but less likely to have access to good legal representation, and get out of prison on parole. While there’s no denying that the presence of crack has a hugely negative impact in Black communities across the country, it’s clear that the overly harsh crack sentencing laws have done more to feed the broken system than improve our communities.
You have to be convicted of moving roughly $75,000 worth of cocaine to trigger a 5-year sentence. For crack? About $500 worth. These laws punish the lowest-level dealers, while providing a loophole that helps those running the trade escape harsh sentences.
Recently, attention has turned to these ill-conceived policies as prisons burst at the seams with non-violent drug offenders. The U.S. Sentencing Commission, which provides sentencing guidelines for judges, has petitioned Congress numerous times to change the sentencing laws.
Last year, we reached out to you when Senator Joe Biden– one of the original architects of the disparity– introduced a bill that would have finally eliminated it and ended the mandatory minimum for crack possession, while increasing funding for drug treatment programs and providing additional resources for going after major cocaine kingpins.
His proposal stalled, but that same legislation is moving through Congress again with new support, and it looks like there’s a real chance it could pass. The White House is a clear ally. President Obama has said many times that punishment for crack and powder cocaine should be the same, and Biden is now Vice President and still an ardent advocate for getting rid of the disparity.
But there are foes of this plan. Others want to see the disparity reduced to 20-to-1 or 10-to-1, but not eliminated. As Bill Piper of the Drug Policy Alliance has said, that “would be like amending the Constitution’s three-fifths clause to make African-Americans fourth-fifths citizens or desegregating 60 percent of public establishments instead of all of them.” Members of Congress need to hear that there is strong support for a full elimination of the disparity, and that now’s the time to support such legislation.
We can take this opportunity to join the Sentencing Commission and countless other advocates in calling on Congress to change this unjust law. Please join us:
http://colorofchange.org/crack/?id=2206-426821
Thank You and Peace,
– James, Gabriel, William, Dani, and the rest of the ColorOfChange team
April 20th, 2009
Shopuld people living outside the US bother signing this?
What percentage of black adults behind bars (and what’s adult? 21? 18? 16?) are there due to a crack cocaine conviction?
Originally, the crack disparity was enacted because crack was thought to be so much more dangerous than cocaine. That is actually a fairly reasonable method of assigning variance in punishment: if you think something is “worse,” you punish it more. Although it seems fairly apparent by now that crack is not 100 times more dangerous than cocaine, I am unsure whether it is exactly the same. If not, it would be reasonable
I continue to be on the fence about the racial disparity issues. On the one hand, crack sentencing laws have really affected the black community. On the other hand, the crack laws really are neutral. If you get a high minimum sentence it is because you were involved with crack, not because you were nonwhite. I am not super comfortable with making something less criminal just because we don’t like who ends up getting caught.
The Supreme Court already told federal judges they could ignore the sentencing guidelines giving a drug trafficker dealing in crack cocaine the same sentence as one dealing in 100 times more powder cocaine. Kimbrough v. U.S. (2007), 7-2 with Thomas and Alito dissenting. Sounds like Congress would just be aligning the statute with what the Court’s said.
Depends on the “it” you’re talking about. If I think the act of dealing drugs is worse than the act of possessing drugs, then yes, I’ll punish the former more than the latter. But I believe in punishing people mostly for their acts and not so much for various collateral consequences thereof (punishing for collateral consequences being how we get the felony murder rule, under which people who’ve never touched a weapon are getting sentenced for murder because they were in on a felony where someone died).
The nastier effects of taking crack vs. cocaine are collateral consequences; they don’t have much to do with the morality of the act of dealing drugs. So I’m not sure why we should treat the crack dealer as having done something worse than the coke dealer.
I suppose it is an issue of how collateral it is.
I think that selling black market ibuprofen to people who can’t afford pain relief is essentially victimless, so I would not really both going after any such dealers.
I think that selling black market crack is not victimless, so i support going after crack dealers. mostly that’s because I think that the link between dealing and using is far from collateral–in fact, it’s the intent of the dealer. I agree that the felony murder rule makes no sense as it is frequently applied, but I do not think that the comparison to dealing is especially apt.
As for the argument in sentencing disparity, there is an interesting line of reasoning that starts with the soundbite question “well, why don’t the crack dealers/users just snort coke instead, if it’s so much more risky to deal/use crack?”
It’s a soundbite because of course there are reasons that people sell/use crack instead of coke. There are differences in function, profit, price, and chemistry.
but those differences mean that it may make sense to justify them differently.
Hm. Here’s the statement we’re being asked to sign:
I’m not contesting the validity of the effort to realign the sentencing structures for crack cocaine vs. powdered cocaine. I do second Sailorman’s comments. But the petition states that this disparity is the cause of a racial disparity in increases of drug convictions, and I don’t see that as being necessarily true given the information provided . There are a lot of factors that can affect how many people are arrested for and convicted of drug offenses (e.g., more money and priority being put into the WOSD). I’d also like to see what the proportion of crack arrests and convictions to overall drug arrest and convictions.
1. I’m pretty sure all crack is black market.
2. Who is the victim?
3. Nope, the dealer just wants people to buy the crack. The totality of his intent is to maximize his own profits. Whether they use it or not is irrelevant.
It is relevant because if people don’t use it they won’t get addicted. If they don’t get addicted, they won’t keep buying.
That said, a person who takes crack/coke/whatever *chooses* to become a victim (although if they die as a result, their family don’t choose the resultant pain and suffering.)
I’m not sure what to think.
If they don’t get addicted, they won’t keep buying.
If people enjoy something, they’ll keep buying even without addiction. I would hope that I’m not addicted to those giant black and white “cookies” (really more like a thin cake) that are a by-the-register staple of every NYC sandwich/wrap purveyor, but I buy one damn near every day, which at $3 means I could have a lunch at the Ritz for what I’m spending on cookies each month. (Not to mention the cost of new clothes for my cookie-expanded butt.)
Do y’all take the same attitude toward people who sell pot that you do toward coke/crack dealers? I.e., that they want all their customers to become hopeless addicts who burden their families? I know people who have done cocaine recreationally and appear to be neither addicted nor burdensome. I admit I don’t know anyone who has told me about using crack, but I would think there are recreational crack users, too.
I have known recreational crack users. I dont think crack is any more addictive than cocaine in the powdered form although from what I understand it is a more intense high. That is probably because it is smoked though.
Well, PG, if you are taking a general “this should not be illegal” stance, then that sort of renders discussions on enforcement moot.
I’m discussing the disparity, which discussion is based on the presumption that it’s OK for governments to ban certain drugs, including but not limited to crack cocaine.
(also, w/r/t pot–there’s no comparable addition there, at all. crack and coke addiction is a whole different level.)
I didn’t say “this should not be illegal,” I’m asking on what basis there’s harsher condemnation for dealers of one illegal drug versus another. I can accept the government’s judgment that an entire class of substances should be illegal without accepting the government’s judgment that someone who sells Substance X should be locked up 10 times longer than smoeone who sells Substance Y. Why crack dealer punishment > coke dealer punishment > pot dealer punishment?
Some drugs are more destructive to the user than others and cause the user to be more destructive. Compare someone who uses tobacco vs. someone who uses meth.
I’m discussing the disparity, which discussion is based on the presumption that it’s OK for governments to ban certain drugs, including but not limited to crack cocaine.
But if the actual disparity in seriousness of the drug is what’s driving the different standard, then alcohol would be illegal and pot would be legal. We already have had situations where we determined that all the extraneous effects of having a certain policy outweigh the benefits, and we change the policy. It’s not like we have some sort of highly calibrated sliding scale of punishment based on the seriousness of a particular drug (LSD dealers are charged based on weight, as well, meaning the weight of the blotter paper, not the concentration of acid in the tabs, determines the length of sentence.) We have a hodge-podge system based on a variety of social and political factors. Why is it inappropriate to consider the extraneous effects of having disparate sentencing and change the policy? It’s not an endorsement of crack cocaine use.
RonF,
Tobacco is legal. Meth isn’t. The comparison therefore isn’t helpful when the question is why dealing Illegal Substance X garners much heavier punishment than Illegal Substance Y.
As chingona points out, there’s indisputably an element of social prejudice in why we make some drugs legal, some legal with a prescription, some wholly illegal. Knowing that social prejudice exists in these determinations, why would anyone assume that there couldn’t possibly be social prejudice — including racial considerations — in the determination of how heavily to punish the possession and distribution of drugs?
I can’t tell from the post if the plan is to end the disparity by increasing the amount needed to trigger a MM for crack, decrease if for Cocaine, or eliminate it for both. Does anyone know?
Why all this “dealer” talk when we just said the disparity applies to possession? (And does anyone honestly believe that “dealer”, in practice, means only and always someone who sells the drug for money?)
hf,
These are the federal sentencing guidelines. They apply only in federal court (where you are being prosecuted by a U.S. Attorney) and are not applicable in state court.
As a practical matter, the federal laws apply only to major crimes, i.e. felonies. People who have very small quantities of drugs are almost never prosecuted in federal court. Even folks who qualify for the federal sentencing guidelines, but who are near the bottom of them, are generally prosecuted in state court, unless they have other crimes for which they are already being prosecuted federally.
The federal prosecutors I knew well did a lot of drug stuff and if it was only a drug bust (as opposed to a collateral drug charge for a murder suspect, etc.) then they would generally not touch stuff under 1/2 kilo or so.
federal court is much more expensive to run, and the feds push a lot of stuff into state if they can.
i feel sentancing for crack or coke are all unfair.yes there should be penalitys for your actions,i dont deny that.my step daughter was sentanced for an 8 ball of powder cocaine,she recived 30 years in prison.i was in the court room the day she was sentanced,and was appaled because the lady that was sentanced ahead of my stepdaughter,this lady had killed her children and recived 5 years in prison, FOR MULTIPAL MURDERS.where is the reasoning in this? this was the onily time that my daughter had ever been convictod for any drug offence.judges i am finding are allowed to use descreation in sentanceing,most will pass down the max for drugs but will let a murder free after a couple of years.in this case it did not matter what coler her skin was.