JACKSON LEE SAYS STRICT SENTENCING COSTS SOCIETY

Lawmaker Wants To Eliminate Bias In Crack Cases And Boost Treatment

WASHINGTON -- The tough-on-crime crackdown of the 1980s and 1990s is
getting a second look in Congress.

Some lawmakers, including Houston Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, are
questioning whether the soaring incarceration rates brought about by
changes in federal sentencing laws have actually deterred crimes.

Jackson Lee and other lawmakers argue that the sentencing-law
changes enacted during the crack cocaine epidemic of the Reagan
years have become a financial burden to taxpayers and a societal
cost in lives lost behind bars.

The longer mandatory sentences have disproportionately affected
African-American defendants, the lawmakers say. Eighty-five percent
of the 19,500 federal inmates convicted of crack-cocaine-related
crimes are black.

Jackson Lee, who serves on the House Judiciary Committee's crime
subcommittee, is part of the vanguard re-examining a criminal
justice system that has seen the federal prison population double
from 1.1 million inmates in 1990 to 2.3 million today. During a
similar period, the violent crime rate declined from 729 crimes per
100,000 people in 1990 to 469 in 2005, the FBI says.

The Houston Democrat has introduced several bills on the topic,
including one backed by the American Civil Liberties Union and
sentencing-reform advocates. The proposal would end the disparity in
prison terms for crack cocaine offenders, a majority of whom are
black, and powder cocaine users, who more often are white or Hispanic.

"The Supreme Court and U.S. Sentencing Commission did not make
decisions about this disparity in a vacuum; they made the decision
to lessen this disparity because it is clearly and profoundly
unfair," said ACLU legislative counsel Jesselyn McCurdy. "But real
change and real justice can only come if Congress acts now to right
these wrongs."

The momentum for change reaches beyond liberal lawmakers and
left-leaning interest groups. The Supreme Court and the Sentencing
Commission recently moved to give judges more discretion in
sentencing crack cocaine offenders.

Harsher sentences

Still, mandatory minimum sentences prompting prison terms 100 times
harsher for crack offenders than powder cocaine offenders remain on
the books.

Jackson Lee's bill would eliminate the sentence disparities and
abolish the five-year mandatory minimum prison sentence for
first-time possession of crack. It also would increase funding for
drug treatment programs and focus federal law enforcement resources
on major drug dealers.

"There are thousands upon thousands of incarcerated persons who have
been adjudged unfairly," said Jackson Lee, a former municipal court
judge. "Both drugs are destructive."

Blocking early release

Rep. Lamar Smith of San Antonio, the top Republican on the Judiciary
Committee, will be among those standing in Jackson Lee's way. After
the Sentencing Commission's decision to allow judges to
retroactively reduce crack offenders' sentences slightly -- though
not less than the mandatory minimums -- Smith introduced his own
legislation seeking to block any early releases.

"In addition to endangering our communities, allowing the early
release of criminals back into society would cripple our re-entry
programs by overburdening probation officers and flood the courts
with additional litigation," Smith said.

A different focus

Jackson Lee's proposal comes as many Democrats on the House and
Senate judiciary panels and the Congressional Black Caucus are
offering bills to improve prisoner re-entry programs, expand job
training and increase mental health and substance abuse programs.

"Focusing more money on incarceration cannot possibly reduce the
crime rate. What we have to do is invest money where it makes some
sense," Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., who heads the Judiciary crime
subcommittee, said during a recent hearing.

Scott noted that the U.S. incarceration rate of 750 adults per
100,000 population is the world's highest. The average rate globally
is 166 per 100,000 persons.

Jackson Lee, who also is pushing to cut prison rates by half for
nonviolent federal offenders who are over the age of 45 and have
served at least 50 percent of their sentence, said she is hopeful
that the new Democratic majority in Congress will be able to prevail
on criminal justice changes.

"The question of liberty is so important to me, and the question of
having faith in the integrity of the criminal justice system," she
said. "There is a sense of urgency to make right which has been
wrong, to improve what has not worked, and to find ways to
rehabilitate, to protect the American public from crime but at the
same time give people a second chance."

Her views are far from universally shared.

Jackson Lee acknowledged the legislation faces a strong challenge,
though the congresswoman said she has high hopes of getting it into
law this year.