New Law to End Drug Charges Disparity

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Christopher Shays will be at the NAACP's annual
convention in Cincinnati on Monday to talk about drug sentencing laws
that some claim hit African American's hardest.

Shays and Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee, D-Texas, have introduced
legislation that would eliminate the disparity in sentences between
powder cocaine and crack cocaine.

"The NAACP has worked for decades to help people of all races,
nationalities and faiths unite on one premise, that all men and women
are created equal," Shays said. "I'm grateful to have the opportunity
to speak with NAACP members about issues I care about like reducing
the disparity in crack-cocaine sentencing disparity, ending racial
profiling, strengthening hate crime prevention laws and increasing
affordable housing."

Congress established harsh mandatory minimum penalties for crack
cocaine in 1986 after the death of University of Maryland basketball
star Len Bias, who had just been the top NBA pick by the Boston
Celtics. Ironically, Bias died after snorting powder cocaine.

Since then, more than 76,000 crack offenders have been sentenced
under the federal guidelines. In 2000, the average prison sentence
for trafficking in crack was 117 months, while the average sentence
for trafficking in powder cocaine was 74 months.

The U.S. Sentencing Commission, which was established in1984 to
bring more consistency to sentencing in federal courts, has
recommended a reduction in harsh sentencing guidelines for crack
cocaine offenses since 1995 but had been thwarted by Congress until
this year.

This May, the commission again proposed reducing penalties for crack
cocaine to bring them more in line with powdered cocaine and Congress
took no action to block the effort. The new guidelines took effect
Nov. 1. The change is expected to reduce new crack sentences by an
average of 15 months.

Hilary Shelton, director of the NAACP's Washington bureau, urged the
commission earlier this year to make the sentencing guidelines
retroactive.

"Few people today argue that policy makers could have foreseen, 20
years ago, the vastly disparate impact the 1986 law would have on
communities of color, yet the fact is that African-Americans and
especially low-income African-Americans continue to be
disproportionately and severely penalized at much greater rates than
white Americans for drug use," she said at the time.