MINORITIES HIT THE HARDEST BY TOUGH DRUG LAWS OF '90S

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - When an epidemic of crack and gang violence erupted in
cities such as New Haven in the 1990s, police and lawmakers struck back hard.

The war on drugs yielded dozens of new laws, including mandatory sentences
for drug dealers and heavier penalties for dealing crack rather than
powdered cocaine.

But those laws also had unintended consequences in minority communities.

Black men make up less than 3 percent of Connecticut's population but
account for 47 percent of inmates in prisons, jails and halfway houses,
2000 census figures show.

Overall in Connecticut, one in 11 black men between age 18 and 64 is behind
bars, the census found. In 1990, that figure was about one in 25.

Nationwide, the Justice Department reported that 12 percent of all black
men between 20 and 34 were locked up last year.

"I don't think anyone intended it to be this way, but if you were trying to
design a system to incarcerate as many African-American and Latino men as
possible, I don't think you could have designed a better system," said
state Rep. Michael Lawlor, co-chairman of the Connecticut Legislature's
Judiciary Committee.

Some states are trying to ease the drug laws of the 1990s.

This year, the Connecticut Legislature voted to give judges more leeway in
sentencing drug dealers who operated near schools, day-care centers and
public-housing projects.

In California, a ballot proposition that will mean treatment instead of
prison for many first- and second-time drug offenders takes effect this year.

A similar 4-year-old program in Arizona has saved money because treatment
is cheaper than prison, a state analysis found. Similar programs are being
considered in Ohio, Florida and Michigan.

Some politicians, however, think a hard line is appropriate. "I think it
sends out a very negative message to the public at large," said Connecticut
state Rep. Ronald San Angelo, a Republican.

People who lived through the gang and drug wars also offer caution. While
they are angry that a generation of young black men are in prison, they do
not want to return to the past.

Lorraine Stanley, a resident of a New Haven housing project for 13 years,
recalled how a drug gang terrorized her neighborhood. Police busted up the
gang, and now a police substation in the neighborhood keeps crime down.

"Things have gotten a whole lot better," Stanley said.