CANDIDATES AFRAID TO TAKE A HIT ON THE WAR ON DRUGS

I thought I was the only one to notice. A presidential election is
coming and the candidates have nearly forgotten the 2.3 million
Americans in prison. OK, many of those Americans won't be voting in
November 2008, but that should not prevent a national discussion of a
criminal justice system obese with mandatory sentences and a war on
drugs gone darkly awry.

News reports in recent weeks announced the United States had passed
all opponent evil empires in its per capita incarceration rate,
locking up one in 100 of its citizens at any given time. China has a
reported 1.6 million people in its prisons, but it has four times our
population. It's embarrassing.

Both Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) have
checked in on criminal justice issues, agreeing that we are sending
too many nonviolent, first-time drug offenders to prison for too long.

Yes, we are, and it's not cheap. And it's not helping those nonviolent
offenders, or their families, or their communities. Even Sen. John
McCain (R-Ariz.), in a town hall meeting last November, said the
words: "We have too many first-time drug offenders in prison." That
said, the senator from Arizona has pretty much clammed up on the
incarceration-craze issue.

It's so politically messy. Talking about drugs and mandatory sentences
can easily lead one into the slough of softness on crime - a place no
good Republican wants to be, and where even Dems fear to tread.

And with all the talk of race in this race, little has been said about
the racial disparities glaring from our criminal justice system. I found
another voice crying in the pundit wilderness, Arianna Huffington, whose
op-ed piece was published in the Los Angeles Times in January. Said
Huffington: "There is a subject being forgotten in the 2008 Democratic
race for the White House. While ... the candidates are vying for the
black and Latino vote, they are completely ignoring one of the most
pressing issues affecting those constituencies: the failed 'war on
drugs' - a war that has morphed into a war on people of color."

Do I need to mention that a gapingly disproportionate number of those
serving prison time are black and Hispanic men? Some call it the new
battlefront to which the civil rights movement has migrated, with the
assistance of tough-on-crime legislation.

Both Clinton and Obama advocate reform of the mandatory minimum
sentencing laws that have nourished the corrections industry while
binding the hands of the judges who hear the details of individual
cases, stealing their discretion. It smells like another case of
dismantlement of checks and balances.

Specifically, both Dem candidates advocate eliminating the federal
mandatory five-year sentence for any crack cocaine violation. This
outrageous law sent any possessor of 5 grams of crack cocaine to
federal prison for five years; but an offender would need to have his
grubby hands on 500 grams of powder cocaine to get the same
five-year-sentence. Clinton rightly called it "unconscionable."

But is it really a war on people of color? Only if people of color cop
more rock, while white druggies blow more snow. You decide.

The two Democratic contenders for their party's nomination disagreed
on whether to make the law retroactive for the crackhead stiffs still
serving out those five-year sentences. Obama favored allowing
retroactive application of reforms for those incarcerated under the
crackhead crackdown. Clinton "had problems" with retroactivity.

And though Clinton and Obama both support alternatives to
incarceration, such as using special drug courts to divert low-level
offenders into treatment, Obama particularly noted that focusing on
unemployment among minorities could go a long way in reducing the
number of minorities serving time. He relates poverty to the crack
problem. This is the kind of soft talk that some fear, and of which
most steer clear on the campaign trail.

I did not hear Obama's or Clinton's remarks on criminal justice in the
recent coverage of the Pennsylvania primary. I had to dig around at
Web sites run by social justice fanatics such as The Sentencing
Project, which offer all kinds of stats and facts and a guide to where
candidates stand on criminal justice issues. Check it out.

It's time to call the war on drugs a failed war, cut our losses and
start talking about it before November.