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Here’s an incremental, but important victory for criminal justice, as the crack/powder cocaine sentencing disparity has shrunk:
Congress has changed a quarter-century-old law that has sent tens of thousands of blacks to prison for crack cocaine convictions while giving far more lenient treatment to those, mainly whites, caught with the same amount of the drug in powder form [...]
The measure alters a 1986 law, enacted at the height of the crack cocaine epidemic, under which a person convicted of crack cocaine possession gets the same mandatory prison term as someone with 100 times the same amount of powder cocaine.
The legislation reduces that ratio to about 18-to-1.
The House passed this today under suspension rules, meaning that over 290 members voted for it. The Senate had passed it earlier. It now goes to the President.
I agree entirely with Adam Serwer when he says that this passage makes the crack disparity “only one fifth as racist as it used to be.” But you know what we don’t do a lot of in this country? Reduce sentences. Check out the makeup of the world’s largest prison population and you’ll see what I mean. “Law ‘n’ Order” and “Tough on Crime” remain shibboleths used by politicians to hammer away at criminal sentencing reformists. So ANY change in a positive direction takes a ridiculous amount of work and struggle. This is a small step, but it’s a step in the right direction.
The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights has a backgrounder on the law change. And the Houston Chronicle spoke out in a very good editorial today. Now, the next step is to eliminate this disparity entirely, so we actually have equal justice under the law.
UPDATE: From the Speaker’s office, here are the full provisions of the bill, which passed by a voice vote.
Reduces the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine from 100:1 to 18:1, with a 5-year mandatory minimum for 28 grams of crack cocaine and a 5-year mandatory minimum for 500 grams of powder cocaine.
Eliminates the mandatory minimum sentence for simple possession of crack cocaine (the only mandatory minimum sentence for simple possession of a drug).
Significantly increases fines for convicted major drug traffickers.
Significantly increases sentences for drug offenders involved in aggravating factors, including bribing law enforcement; maintaining an establishment for drug manufacturing or distribution; involving minors, seniors, or vulnerable victims in the offense; importing drugs; intimidating witnesses; tampering with evidence; or obstructing justice.
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Students for Sensible Drug Policy is reporting that Senator Feinstein’s S.258 (saving kids from dangerous drugs act) will double the penalties for producing edible medical marijuana products.
Reading the text of the bill it’s not clear that:
as was written in the alert I received from SSDP.
The crack-cocaine disparity is insane on many levels:
1) Sentencing guidelines are based on gross weight and do not take into account impurities. So you’ll likely do more time for the cheap stuff.
2) When you convert powder to crack the crack weighs more, so right there you get a longer sentece for the same amount of drug.
3) On the other hand, crystal meth is a pure form of methamphetamine so you get much more drug with crystal than with powder (“crank”)–yet the law makes no distinction between the two forms.
Will those already in stir get sentence reviews?
With one hand Congress Gives, then with the other we have DiFi trying to pass another amazingly mean-spirited drug law.
S258 which could come to the floor any day doubles the federal sentences for anyone that puts marijuana in Brownies, Cookies or Candy. There are many people that cannot smoke pot for any number of reasons and yet they still take it daily in their food are recommended by their doctors.
no, I don’t think so, which is absurd.
I was on a jury for a trial about crack selling. It was a huge waste of tax payer dollars. Between the PD man-hours spent on busting a really small-time pusher who sold mainly to the down and out, the court’s time, and the jury’s time… what. a. waste. The amount of crack the pusher had when busted was tiny.
And yet I’ve worked for the legal system for years, and I happen to know that many middle to upper middle class attorneys use blow to stay awake doing long hours of research. None of them fear being busted, and if they were, they’d most likely got “off” with a warning. And if it came to a trial, they’d either get a slap on the wrist or do far less time (yeah, sure, they might also lose their license, but it might just be temp suspended, too).
It was a clear picture of class discrimination in action, along with a big cha-ching for the middle classes (in this case) who “benefit” from such draconian class-based laws. And then the pusher is shipped off to prison, which costs even more tax dollars.
Really insane. I do my best to break this down on a cost-basis for citizens because they’re not “getting” how much this is costing taxpayers for very little “reward.” The small-time pusher goes to jail, but even as the trial was going on, some other small time pusher was out there selling crack to the same people. Truly pitiful and a waste of my precious time and dime.
This law is, I *guess*, a step in the right direction but still completely pathetic, imo. Thanks for the report on it.
Such laws are rarely ever retroactive. It would be almost impossible to review all the cases and go thru the hassle of the early release. And these days most jurisdictions just don’t have the manpower to do that.
So, no, those in jail will almost certainly serve out their sentences. The only thing that might happen is that if some come up for parole earlier than the end of their sentence, this new law could be taken into account for letting them off on parole early.