MINORITIES HARDEST HIT BY WAR ON DRUGS

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - When an epidemic of crack and gang violence erupted in
cities like 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 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 the ages of 18 and 64
is behind bars, the census found. In 1990, that figure was about one in 25.

Similar disparities can be seen across the country. In Louisiana, one of
the few states to receive updated race statistics from the census, black
inmates outnumber whites 3-to-1; blacks account for only a third of the
state's population.

Nationwide, the Justice Department reported that 12 percent of all black
men between ages 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.

The National Conference of State Legislatures estimates state governments
spend $20 billion a year fighting drugs.

Some states now are trying to ease the drug laws of the 1990s, putting more
money toward prevention and treatment instead of incarceration.

"You can't put every drug user in jail, because if you do and they don't
get any help, they're going to be right back in again," said Chief State's
Attorney Jack Bailey, Connecticut's top prosecutor for 10 years.

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

The old law set a three-year mandatory minimum sentence for dealing within
1,500 feet of those places. In densely populated New Haven, that meant
virtually everywhere except the Yale University golf course and the
Tweed-New Haven airport runway.

While drugs also are prevalent in Connecticut's mostly white suburbs, the
preference there for powdered cocaine over crack and sprawling development
meant that few suburban dealers faced the same penalties.

In California this year, a ballot proposition takes effect that will mean
treatment instead of prison for many first- and second-time drug offenders.
Offenders' records are cleared if they complete treatment.

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, believe a hard line on drugs is appropriate or
do not wish to be seen as soft on crime.

"I think it sends out a very negative message to the public at large," said
Connecticut state Rep. Ronald San Angelo, a Republican who opposed changing
mandatory minimum sentences.