Black America Web, News Report, Frederick Cosby, Posted: Jul 30, 2010

WASHNGTON D.C. -- The House of Representatives passed a landmark bill Wednesday that reduces decades-old disparities in crack and powder cocaine prison sentencing that resulted in the disproportionate incarceration of blacks.

By voice vote, House Democrats and Republicans acknowledged the racial injustice of a 1986 law that established mandatory minimum sentencing rates for possession of crack cocaine, a popular urban drug, that were 100 times higher than possession of powder cocaine, a drug preferred more by whites.

“The bill greatly reduces the unwarranted disparity in sentences for crack and powder cocaine offenses and will go a long way toward ensuring that our sentencing laws are tough, consistent and fair,” Attorney General Eric Holder said after the vote. “This day was long in coming, and I want to express my appreciation to the members of the House and Senate who worked tirelessly to bring about this result.”

Under current law, possession of five grams of crack carries a mandatory minimum of five years in prison, while it takes possessing 500 grams of powder cocaine to trigger a mandatory five-year prison sentence.

The House bill closes the disparity by raising the minimum quantity of crack it takes to trigger the minimum sentence from five grams to 28 grams while keeping the quantity for powder cocaine at 500 grams. The change narrows the disparity ratio from 100 to one to 18 to one. The bill also eliminates mandatory minimum sentences for simple possession of crack cocaine.

The disparity in quantities was rooted in the fear that crack, with its inexpensive price and the intense, quick high offered users, was somehow different from powder cocaine. Big urban cities like New York, Atlanta and Los Angeles feared that an uncontrolled crack epidemic could destroy commnities and fuel a major crime wave.

“As director of National Drug Control Policy, I'm charged with ensuring the United States is doing all it can to reduce drug use and its consequences,” said Gil Kerlikowske, White House Drug Control Policy Director. “Our efforts to do so should be grounded in science and evidence, and there is no scientific basis for the crack/powder sentencing disparity.”

The Senate passed a similar version of the House bill in March. Black lawmakers, civil rights groups and civil liberties advocates have fought the for years to get the current law – created during the height of public fear of rising crack use – saying it was contributing to an increase of blacks being sent to prison while powder cocaine-using whites were avoiding prosecution.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the main sponsor of the bill in the Senate with Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), said he voted for the harsh sentences when he was a House member in 1986. When crack first appeared on the scene, "there was near panic in the halls of Congress" over the new cheap, addictive and destructive drug. "It scared us to death. We overreacted."

President Barack Obama, who is expected to sign the bill into law, declared as a candidate in 2008 that the 1986 law “cannot be justified and should be eliminated.”

A 2009 report by the Sentencing Project said that even though drug use rates among racial and ethnic groups is similar, prison sentencing for cocaine crimes isn’t. An examination of 2006 cocaine sentencing by the project found that 81.1 percent of crack cocaine defendants were black, 8.8 percent were white and 8.4 percent were Hispanic. For powder cocaine, 57.5 percent of defendants were Hispanic, 27 percent were black and 14.7 percent were white.

Currently, 80 percent of current crack defendants are black, according to the Sentencing Project. The U.S. Sentencing Commission estimates that the congressional bill will affect commission projects the prison population could be reduced by 3,800 in 10 years after the new law’s enactment.

“Everyone seems to agree that crack cocaine use is higher among Caucasians than any other group,” NAACP President Benjamin Jealous said in a written statement. “Because of the mandatory minimum jail sentence for those convicted of possession of five grams of crack cocaine or more, people of color are being put in prisons at a much higher rate than their Caucasian counterparts, and the judges have no discretion to mitigate the sentence for first-time or nonviolent offenders of special circumstances.”

“This legislation is just the first step in eliminating disparities in sentencing and we will continue to push for the elimination of this racially discriminatory sentencing disparity,” Jealous added.

ACLU officials applauded the House’s action Wednesday.

“Congress has just struck down a mandatory minimum for the first time in history and has sent the correct message that we cannot continue to use a one-size-fits all approach to sentencing,” said Lauran W. Murphy, director of the ACLU’s Washington Legislative Office. “The passage of the Fair Sentencing Act by both chambers of Congress is an important first step toward finally eliminating disparity. However, the bill does leave a sizable sentencing disparity that we will continue to work to eliminate.”