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Race and Mythology in Drug Laws--The Senate Backs Off Equalizing Crack vs. Powder Sentencing Disparity

By Real Cost of Prisons Project (The Sentencing Project)

Editorial Race and Mythology in Drug Laws Editorial: NY Times Published: March 19, 2010 Congress is trying to undo some of the damage it inflicted more than two decades ago with its frenzied mandating of longer prison sentences for abusers of crack cocaine than for those who abuse the powder version. The result has been disproportionately harsher punishment for crack offenders in black neigborhoods. The law is built on a scientifically indefensible 100-to-1 ratio, which means the same prison term (a minimum of five years) for 5 ounces of crack as for 500 ounces of the powder kind. A compromise reform of the law approved this week by the Senate would repeal mandated sentences for simple possession and reduce the ratio to 18-to-1 for trafficking in crack versus powder cocaine...continue to full post

Full post as published by The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog on March 21, 2010 (boomark / email).