Washington,
D.C. – In a move widely hailed by
advocates for justice reform, the U.S. Sentencing Commission unanimously voted
Tuesday to reduce retroactively lengthy sentences meted out to
thousands of people convicted of crack cocaine-related offenses over the past
two decades. The Commission’s action
diminishes but does not eliminate the impact of Reagan-era laws that defined a
gram of crack cocaine, a cheap form of the drug sold in poor, predominantly
African American neighborhoods beginning in the mid-1980s, as equivalent to 100
grams of cocaine powder, which contains the same psychoactive chemical but is
retailed in larger, more expensive amounts.
“For 21 years now, we’ve had a set of policies
in place that have unfairly and severely punished low-income people of color
for behavior that was similar to that of more well-off offenders who were
punished less severely,” says Marc Mauer, executive director of The
Sentencing Project, a Washington-based advocacy organization and Public Welfare
Foundation grantee that has waged a 15-year campaign to eliminate the
crack/cocaine disparity. “The Sentencing
Commission has adjusted the sentencing guidelines that went over and above the
mandatory minimums [for drug offenses].
These actions promote public safety more effectively by not wasting
scarce prison space on low-level offenders and provide a beginning step in
remedying the unconscionable racial disparities in the justice system.”
The Public Welfare Foundation has awarded The
Sentencing Project nearly $1 million since 1998 for work toward a variety of
criminal justice reforms, including an end to disparate sentencing. The
Foundation’s Criminal and Juvenile Justice Reform Program, expanded and
refocused last October, supports efforts to reduce the U.S. prison
population generally and the disproportionate incarceration of minorities.
The Sentencing Commission
decided last May to modify the federal sentencing guidelines to narrow the gap
between punishments recommended for offenses involving cocaine powder and those
involving crack cocaine. That change,
which went into effect November 1, was made at the urging of a broad range of
advocates and legal thinkers, including the federal judiciary, whose spokesman,
U.S. District Court Judge Reggie Walton, argued that the crack/cocaine
disparity was corroding respect for the criminal justice system because so many
people of color “think the system of justice in America is racist” due to the
large numbers of young African Americans incarcerated for long terms for
handling crack cocaine.
On Tuesday, the
Commission extended the new policy to make it retroactive to some 19,500 people
now serving time for crack cocaine offenses.
The Commission estimated that 86 percent of those eligible to seek
reduced sentences are African American.
Exactly how many inmates will win reduced sentences is
unknown because federal judges must examine each case individually. “There’s no reason to believe the vast
majority would not receive the sentencing reduction, but if there are concerns
about public safety, that’s up to the judge,” says Mauer.
As many as 2,500 inmates
eligible for reduced sentences could come before the courts next year. After
that, the cases are expected to trickle in over the next 30 years. The Commission
has estimated that sentence reductions are likely to average 27 months, from
152 to 125 months. Over time, The
Sentencing Project calculates, earlier termination of crack offenders'
sentences may reduce prison costs nationwide by as much as $1 billion.
The Commission’s move came on the heels of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling Monday
that a federal judge hearing a crack cocaine case “may consider the disparity
between the Guidelines’ treatment of crack and powder offenses.”
The opinion, decided by a vote of seven to two, came in the case of Derrick
Kimbrough, an ex-Marine and Gulf War veteran convicted of crack, cocaine powder
and firearms offenses. Then-existing sentencing guidelines called for a
sentence of 22.5 years for Kimbrough’s offenses, but the trial judge, calling
the crack/cocaine disparity “disproportionate and unjust,” gave Kimbrough 15
years. Writing for the majority, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg affirmed
that trial judges had the leeway to depart from the guidelines in such cases. “Although chemically similar, crack and
powder cocaine are handled very differently for sentencing purposes,” Ginsburg
wrote. “….This disparity means that a
major supplier of powder cocaine may receive a shorter sentence than a
low-level dealer who buys powder from the supplier but then converts it to
crack.”
Advocates say that even with greater judicial discretion, trial judges will be
limited in their abilities to consider the particular circumstances of each
drug defendant who comes before them as long as statutory mandatory minimum
sentences for various drug-related offenses are on the books.
The Sentencing Commission
acknowledged as much Tuesday by calling on Congress to “provide a comprehensive
solution to a fundamental unfairness in Federal sentencing
policy.”
“Mandatory minimums are
still in place, and they’re driving this whole problem,” says
Mauer. “Ultimately, that’s what needs to change.”
Photo courtesy of the Campaign for Youth Justice
