Political leaders Essay

Must acknowledge the excessive and racially disproportionate incarceration of nonviolent drug offenders and grapple forthrightly with ways to eliminate it. The first step is to reevaluate the current strategies for fighting drugs. Policy makers in each state, as well as in the federal government, should reassess existing public policy approaches to drug use and sales to identify more equitable but still effective options. In particular, they should examine the costs and benefits of relying heavily on penal sanctions to addressdrug use and drug trafficking and should look closely at law enforcement strategies to identify ways to make them more racially equitable. We believe each state as well as the federal government should subject current and proposed drug policies to strict scrutiny and modify those that cause significant, unwarranted racial disparities. In addition, we believe the state and federal governments should: * Eliminate mandatory minimum sentencing laws that require prison sentences based on the quantity of the drug sold and the existence of a prior record. Offenders who differ in terms of conduct, danger to the community, culpability, and other ways relevant to the purposes of sentencing should not be treated identically. Judges should be able to exercise their informed judgment in crafting effective and proportionate sentences in each case. * Increase the availability and use of alternative sanctions for nonviolent drug offenders. Drug defendants convicted of nonviolent offenses should ordinarily not be given prison sentences, even if they are repeat offenders, unless they have caused or threatened specific, serious harm — for example, when drug sales are made to children — or if they have upper level roles in drug distribution organizations. * Increase the use of special drug courts in which addicted offenders are given the opportunity to complete court supervised substance abuse treatment instead of being sentenced to prison. * Increase the availability of substance abuse treatment and prevention outreach in the community as well as in jails and prisons. * Redirect law enforcement and prosecution resources to emphasize the arrest, prosecution, and incarceration of importers, manufacturers, and major distributors, e. g. , drug king pins, rather than low level offenders and street level retail dealers. * Eliminate different sentencing structures for powder cocaine and crack cocaine, drugs that are pharmacologically identical but marketed in a different form. Since more blacks are prosecuted for crack cocaine offenses and thus subjected to the higher penalties for crack offenses that exist in federal and some state laws, the crack-powder sentencing differential aggravates without adequate justification the racial disparities in imprisonment for drug offenses. * Eliminate racial profiling and require police to keep and make public statistics on the reason for all stops and searches and the race of the persons targeted. * Require police to keep and make public statistics on the race of arrested drug offenders and the location of the arrests. To facilitate more inter-state criminal justice analyses, the Bureau of Justice Statistics of the U. S. Department of Justice should annually compile and publish state-by-state statistics on the racial impact of the criminal justice system as it applies to drug offenders, including statistics on arrests, convictions, sentences, admissions to prison, and prison populations. II. THE EXTENT OF U. S. INCARCERATION In the year 2001, the total number of people in U. S. prisons and jails will surpass two million. 12 The state and federal prison population has quadrupled since 1980 and the rate of incarceration relative to the nation’s population has risen from 139 per 100,000 residents to 468. 13 If these incarceration rates persist, an estimated one in twenty of America’s children today will serve time in a state or federal prison during his or her lifetime. 14 There is a considerable range in prison incarceration rates among U. S. states (Table 1). Minnesota has the lowest rate, 121 prisoners per 100,000 residents, and Louisiana the highest, with a rate of 763. Seven of the ten states with the highest incarceration rates are in the South. 15 Almost every state has a prison incarceration rate that greatly exceeds those of other western democracies, in which between 35 and 145 residents per 100,000 are behind bars on an average day. 16 The District of Columbia, an entirely urban jurisdiction, has a rate of 1,600. 1 See Human Rights Watch, Cruel and Usual: Disproportionate Sentences for New York Drug Offenders (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1997). Thirty two states have mandatory minimum sentencing laws for drug offenses. Bureau of Justice Assistance, â€Å"National Assessment of Structured Sentencing† U. S. Department of Justice (February 1996). Mandatory sentences are not responsible for all excessive drug sentences. In Oklahoma, for example, a jury in 1997 gave a sentence of 93 years to Will Forster, an employed father of three with no prior criminal record who grew marijuana plants in his basement. 2 Michael Tonry, Malign Neglect: Race, Crime, and Punishment in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995); David Cole, No Equal Justice (New York:The New Press, 1999); David Musto, The American Disease: Origins of Narcotic Control (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1973). 3 See, e. g. , Craig Reinarman and Harry G. Levine, â€Å"The Crack Attack, Politics and Media in the Crack Scare,† in Craig Reinarman and Harry G. Levine, Crack in America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997) .4 Barry R. McCaffrey â€Å"Race and Drugs: Perception and Reality, New Rules for Crack Versus Powder Cocaine,† Washington Times, October 5, 1997 citing results of a survey published in 1995: Burston, Jones, and Robert-Saunders, â€Å"Drug Use and African Americans: Myth Versus Reality† in the Journal of Alcohol and Drug Education. Ninety-five percent of respondents pictured a black drug user while only 5 percent imagined other racial groups. 5 According to the United States Sentencing Commission, 88. 3 percent of federal crack cocaine defendants were black. United States Sentencing Commission, Special Report to the Congress: Cocaine and Federal Sentencing Policy, 1995, Washington, D. C. , 1995, p. 156. The sentencing laws of at least ten states also treat crack cocaine offenses more harshly than powder. 6 See Human Rights Watch and The Sentencing Project â€Å"Losing the Vote: The Impact of Felony Disenfranchisement Law in the United States,† (New York: Washington, D. C. , 1998) 7 The requirement of proof of intent has been a formidable barrier for victims of discrimination in the criminal justice system seeking judicial relief. See, e. g. , â€Å"Developments in the Law: Race and the Criminal Process,† 101 Harvard Law Review 1520 (1988). 8 International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, Par. I, Article 1,3. In the Centre for Human Rights, Human Rights: A Compilation of International Instruments, Vol. , ST/HR/1/REV. 5 (New York: United Nations, 1994), p. 66. Also available at http://www. un. org/Depts/Treaty/. 9 See CERD, General Recommendation XIV(42) on article 1, paragraph 1, of the Convention, U. N. GAOR, 48th Sess. , Supp. No. 18, at 176, U. N. Doc. A/48/18(1993). See also, Theodor Meron, â€Å"The Meaning and Reach of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination,† 79 The American Journal of International Law 283, 287-88 (1985). 10 Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, General Recommendation on Par. I, Article 1 of CERD. 11 See Todd R. Clear, â€Å"The Unintended Consequences of Incarceration,† (paper presented to the NIJ Workshop on Corrections Research, February 14-15, 1996). 12 Allen J. Beck, â€Å"Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 1999,† Bureau of Justice Statistics, U. S. Department of Justice (April 2000). 13 Ibid. ; Kathleen Maguire and Ann L. Pastore, eds. , 1998 Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics, Bureau of Justice Statistics, U. S. Department of Justice (1999), Table 6. 36. 14 Thomas P. Bonczar and Allen J. Beck, â€Å"Lifetime Likelihood of Going to State or Federal Prison,† Bureau of Justice Statistics, U. S. Department of Justice (March 1997). 15 In each of the twenty years since 1978 for which data is available, the South has had significantly higher incarceration rates than any other region. See BJS, 1998 Sourcebook, Table 6. 37 . 16 The number of prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants varies worldwide from about 20 in Indonesia to about 685 in Russia. In Western Europe, the rate ranges between 35 in Cyprus and 145 in Portugal. Andre Kuhn, â€Å"Incarceration Rates Across the World,† Overcrowded Times, April 1999, p. 1. International rates of incarceration include prisoners awaiting sentences as well as all sentenced prisoners, whereas state prisons in the U. S. only confine convicted prisoners with sentences of more than one year. Therefore, the actual difference between foreign rates of incarceration and U. S. prison incarceration rates is even greater than suggested. http://www. hrw. org/reports/2000/usa/Rcedrg00-03. htm#P222_42059.