CRACK THE PRISON CYCLE

When one-tenth of any group is in prison or jail, the American public
should be disturbed -- "disturbed" as in "ready to stop being
complacent and find out why."

The 2000 Census found that one in 10 African-American males between
the ages of 18 and 64 is incarcerated. In Florida, it's one in 12.
Among whites nationwide, it's one in 50. Something clearly is wrong,
unless one still believes totally discredited theories about race.

Law-enforcement authorities know, of course, that they will find
crime where they look for it. That's what makes racial profiling so
pernicious. If drivers are stopped for "DWB" -- driving while black
- -- suspects will be apprehended for crimes that never are discovered
among drivers who happen to be white.

Experts point to the wide discrepancy in federal sentencing
guidelines for cocaine, guidelines brought on by legislative
overreaction. More affluent white users tend to favor their cocaine
in costlier powder form, while poorer African-American users usually
go for cheaper rocks, or "crack." There's a five-year minimum prison
sentence for trafficking 500 grams of powder or only 5 grams of
crack. As long ago as 1995, the U.S. Federal Sentencing Commission
recommended bringing the penalties into a sane relationship.
President Clinton and Attorney General Janet Reno rejected the
recommendation then and later.

Novelist Toni Morrison called Mr. Clinton "our first black
president," but during his tenure, the percentage of
African-Americans in prison rose, and he did nothing to address
disparities in sentencing for rock or powder cocaine nor in capital
crimes. Instead, he urged federal prosecutors to go after "kingpins,"
not small-time dealers. That's easier to urge than to do. If crime is
where you look for it, long prison sentences are not where the
accused can afford a "dream team" to defend him. Money, if there is
enough, neutralizes race at sentencing, but so can looking and
talking like people the judge meets at parties.

The racial gaps that still exist in criminal law infect everything
around it. The men in prison are too often fathers of children whom
the imprisonment left with one parent, and it's hard to start a
business if employees have a one-in-10 chance of being arrested.

It's not being soft on crime to think there is a social pathology
revealed by the percentage and that the nation needs a plan to change
it. Ten percent looks more like population control than crime
control. In a way, it is.