REPORT: PRISON FOR BLACKS MORE LIKELY

Blacks on Long Island were 36 times more likely in 2002 to be
imprisoned for drug offenses than whites, despite possessing and
selling illegal drugs at similar rates, according to a national study
tracking racial disparities in prison admissions.

Only 14 of the nation's 198 largest counties -- those with populations
of 250,000 or more -- yielded higher disparities than Long Island in
the study released by the Justice Policy Institute, a Washington-based
think tank focusing on alternatives to incarceration.

"I did not expect that 97 percent of the largest counties would see
racial disparities in terms of the African-American and white
admission rates," said Jason Ziedenberg, executive director of the
Institute.

He added that the researchers did not try to find out why the
disparities exist but that they may stem from law enforcement policies
that concentrate on "open-air" drug sales in urban centers. Blacks
tend to sell drugs on streets while whites tend to sell them from
homes, dormitory rooms and other indoor locations, he said.

Four of those top counties were in New York. They are Westchester,
Dutchess, Albany, and Onandaga counties where blacks were 37, 40, 58
and 99 times more likely than whites to serve prison time for drug
offenses, respectively.

2002 is the latest year for which data was available.

New York City had a more equitable gap: There, blacks are five times
more likely to serve time in prison for drug offenses than whites.

Nationally, the study found blacks go to prison at 10 times the rate
of whites, and 193 of the country's 198 largest counties present such
racial disparities. The study did not factor for ethnicity so it does
not account for Hispanics, who can be of any race.

Its findings, said one analyst, may reflect misguided law enforcement
policies.

Bob Gangi, executive director of the Correctional Association of New
York, which monitors the state's prisons, said the "discriminatory
aspects of how we deploy police, and the impact of mandatory
sentencing laws leads to this result and a policy that is not only
ineffective, but marked by corrosive racial bias."

Titled "The Vortex: The Concentrated Racial Impact of Drug
Imprisonment and the Characteristics of Punitive Counties," the study
also found that:

Of 175,000 people sent to prison for drugs nationwide in 2002, over
half were black, though blacks comprise 13 percent of the population.

It found no relationship between rates at which people are sent to
prison for drug offenses and the rates at which people use drugs. The
study said 9.2 percent of blacks use illegal drugs, compared to 8.1
percent of whites.

Nassau District Attorney Kathleen Rice could not be reached for
comment last night and a spokesman for Suffolk District Attorney Tom
Spota, Robert Clifford, said, "Until we read and study the findings,
we decline to comment."

Ethan Nadelman, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, a
Manhattan-based organization devoted to decriminalizing drugs, said
economic factors such as whether white defendants are better
represented than black defendants could also affect the disparity.

But he said he is sure the gaps don't exist to such great degrees
because blacks commit more drug-related crimes.

"It's clearly the case that the rates of arrest and prosecution and
incarceration of blacks relative to whites far exceed any relatively
higher rate of involvement in crime," said Nadelman.