DRUG CASES UP, SENTENCES DOWN

WASHINGTON - Convicted federal drug offenders are spending less time behind
bars, but more of them are being prosecuted, according to a new study of
judicial records.

The shorter sentences, over a 1992-1998 timespan that includes most of the
Clinton administration, suggest that federal judges and prosecutors are
finding ways around tough mandatory minimum sentences mandated by Congress
to crack down on drug traffickers.

To some experts, the findings also suggest that federal agents are
increasingly nailing "small fry" drug offenders rather than the kingpins
whom federal agencies are uniquely suited to pursue.

"There has been an undue emphasis on the lesser figures in drug trafficking
because they're easier to convict," said Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., a
member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The study by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a government
performance analysis center in Washington that is associated with Syracuse
University, found that the average federal drug sentence dropped about 20
percent between 1992 and 1998.

The Justice Department did not dispute the figures. "We have been aware of
this trend for several years," said department spokesman John Russell.

For the Drug Enforcement Administration, which brings most drug cases to
federal courts, the average sentence dropped to 75 months in 1998 from 94
months in 1992.

Nationally, the number of federal drug prosecutions rose to an all-time
high of 21,571 in 1998, up 16 percent from 1992.

DEA and the U.S. Customs Service, the second-biggest narcotics enforcement
agency, remain focused on marijuana. In 1998, their convictions involving
marijuana totaled 34 percent of all their drug cases, compared with 28
percent for powder cocaine and 17 percent for crack cocaine.

The marijuana quantities are large, however. To rate a five-year mandatory
federal drug sentence, a trafficker would have to be dealing more than 100
kilos of marijuana compared with 500 grams of cocaine.

Bob Weiner, spokesman for U.S. drug-policy coordinator Barry McCaffrey,
called the new report "a mixed batch of statistics." He said it was obvious
most arrests involve smaller cases. "There's only one person at the top of
the pyramid, and everybody else is down from that," he said.

Analysts also say that federal judges, who have long complained that
mandatory sentencing is too rigid and severe, have found a way around those
mandates with the cooperation of Congress and the Clinton administration.

One of those bypasses is a "safety valve" provision adopted by Congress in
1994, giving judges more flexibility in sentencing low-level cases. Since
then, drug defendants who cooperate with prosecutors have been rewarded
with shorter sentences, said Russell, the Justice spokesman.