ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, December 30, 1995 TAG: 9601020012
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
STIFF CRACK sentences are not merely the result of racist cops and courts.
There are racist cops, undeniably. There are racist jurists, undoubtedly. And there are disparities in sentencing and enforcement that need to be addressed - most immediately, mandatory minimum sentences meted out in federal courts for crack-cocaine violations.
Yet, just as outrage is growing in black communities about the disproportionate number of young black men sitting in prisons on first-time crack offenses, outrage also is sweeping black communities and others about the devastating effects of the illegal crack trade on neighborhoods - mostly poor, black neighborhoods.
Mothers pulling their little ones out of bed onto the floor at the sound of gunfire; children witnessing violence and death, displaying the signs of traumatic stress syndrome noted in returning Vietnam War veterans; grandparents exhorting their young to resist the lure of the fast life - and, possibly, a fast death - on the street. These are the images that harden society's resolve to fight the crack trade.
Remember Roanoke's late, unlamented "crack alley?" Law-abiding citizens fighting to keep crack houses from destroying the quiet safety of their neighborhoods?
Like so many things born of frustration and anger, the federal minimum sentencing law for crack offenses is extreme. It should be revised, a recommendation made by the nonpartisan U.S. Sentencing Commission and rejected by the Republican Congress and Democratic president.
In politics, neither side dares risk accusations of being soft on crime. But the extreme penalty exacted on crack offenders - a mandatory minimum sentence 100 times greater than the minimum for a pure cocaine arrest - has brought the race card into play in the war on drugs. Crack (powder cocaine cut with baking soda and "cooked" to make it smokeable) is cheap and popular in (black/poor) inner cities. Powder cocaine is favored in (white/affluent) suburbs.
Disparities in sentencing and enforcement - the great majority of federal crack prosecutions are of black men - led first a Los Angeles district court judge and now a federal judge in Norfolk to dismiss drug indictments against black defendants on the basis that the system is biased. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the Los Angeles case. Congress and the president don't have to wait for the justices to rule, though, to right this wrong.
Crack is simply cocaine, as critics of the system point out, but it is not just like powder cocaine. It is more addictive because it is smoked, putting it directly into the bloodstream, and its sale and use are associated with violence and street gangs. The sentencing commission suggests sentencing parity for the two drugs, with discretion to add penalties to crack-cocaine arrests depending on the circumstances surrounding the crime. That makes sense. Lawmakers should forget the soundbites and act in the public interest to change this law.
But all of us, meantime, should take heed of two more general phenomena:
First, blacks are disproportionately victims of crime, their neighborhoods disproportionately undermined by drugs. The law-abiding deserve protection; the lawbreakers should find no protection behind a race card.
Second, the war on drugs isn't working. All segments of our society must come together to rethink drug policy, to begin shifting the paradigm for addressing this epidemic from crime to health, from arresting people to rebuilding communities.
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