COCAINE SENTENCING REFORM JUSTIFIED

No one can plausibly label Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions a
bleeding-heart, soft-on-crime politician. The conservative Republican
previously served as attorney general of Alabama and as U.S. attorney
for the Southern District of the state.

Given that, Sessions has ample law-and-order credentials and plenty
of credibility when proposing reforms in the glaringly unbalanced
sentencing for cocaine offenses. This is not a question of coddling
criminals, but rather a move toward a more equitable sentencing
structure for offenses involving the different forms of the drug.

Under the current federal sentencing structure, offenses involving
crack cocaine are punished significantly more harshly than offenses
involving powder cocaine. The disparity is huge. Five grams of crack
cocaine means five years in prison, but it takes 500 grams of powder
cocaine to draw the same sentence. Fifty grams of crack cocaine
brings a 10-year sentence, but an offender has to have 5,000 grams of
powder cocaine to get the same sentence.

A 100:1 disparity is hard to defend under any circumstances and has
drawn particular criticism because of the much higher incidence of
crack cocaine use among minorities, particularly African-Americans.

There is a strong case to be made for stiffer penalties for crack
cocaine offenses. Crack cocaine, cheaper and more addictive than
powder cocaine, tends to produce violent behavior and other criminal
activity related to obtaining the drug. Even so, the 100:1 disparity
in the amounts leading to sentencing is excessive.

"We've had a lot of concerns and complaints about that, and I think
they're legitimate," Sessions said in an interview with the Birmingham News.

Sessions proposes dropping the disparity to 20:1 by reducing the
amount of powder cocaine in the sentencing equation and increasing
the amount of crack cocaine. For a 10-year sentence, for example,
that would mean 200 grams of crack cocaine and 4,000 grams of powder cocaine.

"I think it's the right balance," Sessions told the News. "I believe
it would improve the sentencing guidelines, create more integrity in
the system and create more public confidence in the system."

It's clearly a fairer approach.