An End to Sentencing Inequality

by Matt Kelley · 2009-04-30 05:43:00 UTC
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Yesterday, on the Obama administration's 100th day in office, the Department of Justice urged Congress to pass laws ending the inequality in punishment between possession of crack cocaine and the powder form of the drug. For more than two decades, possession of 50 grams of crack has carried the same 10-year minimum sentence as 5000 grams of powder cocaine. It's about time we address this disparity.

Obama and Biden made clear during the campaign that they intended to change this destructive policy, in which a drug used more frequently by the poor and members of minority groups is penalized so much more heavily than one favored by the wealthy.

At yesterday's hearing in the Senate s Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs, Families Against Mandatory Minimums member Cedric Parker told the members about his sister's 22-year sentence for small amounts of crack. Via Reason's Hit & Run blog:

Her sentence would have been about half as long had she traded cocaine powder instead of crack. At her sentencing hearing, the judge told her:

Now is that fair? No. It's not....But the truth of the matter is, it's not in my hands. As I told you, Congress has determined that the best way to handle people who are troublesome is we just lock them up. Congress passed the laws.

Drug Policy Alliance's Jasmine Taylor wrote with Anthony Papa in the Huffington Post that we have a unique opportunity to make this change and called on Congress to make it happen.

The stars are aligning to ensure Americans will no longer be subjected to the same draconian policy set in the late 80s, which flies in the face of scientific and legal research. Congress and the administration have an obligation to fix this and show the country that our criminal justice practices will be fair and sentences proportional to the offense. We can no longer prioritize precious federal resources solely on the incarceration of individuals who are low-level, nonviolent drug users and sellers nor permit any racial group to continue to be unjustly targeted.

Matt Kelley is the Online Communications Manager at the Innocence Project and a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Follow him on Twitter @mattjkelley.
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