MORE CRIMINAL INJUSTICE

New Drug Laws Target Minorities, Poor

Our criminal justice system is in dire need of reform. Nothing has
contributed more to this problem than the "War on Drugs." The concern is
specifically highlighted in laws that target minorities and deal out harsh
sentences based on mandatory minimums. According to Mark Mauer, assistant
director of "The Sentencing Project," a national organization based in
Washington, D.C., these "get tough" policies have led to a rise in black
incarceration rates across the board by attaching harsher penalties to
those drugs used by minorities and the lower socio-economic classes.

To add to this already discriminatory system, Congress has recently passed
a new law that will only exacerbate the problem of overcrowded prisons and
the racial disparity in the criminal justice system. This new law
incorporates methamphetamines (most notably, crystal meth) into mandatory
minimum drug laws. Ecstasy, on the other hand - which is in fact meth-based
- - will be excluded from the law.

According to salon.com, Ecstasy is a drug used mostly by upper and middle
class white kids, while mostly minorities and lower classes use
methamphetamines. Absurd congressional initiatives like this expose
fundamental and perhaps unintentional trend of race and class-based
warfare, especially considering the fact that those arrested by these
unjust laws deny a large number of minorities the right to vote.

Illinois Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. and columnist Arianna Huffington are two
prominent figures that have compared drug laws to racially discriminatory
"Jim Crow" laws in the late 19th century. Statistics show a blatant trend
of laws that support these claims.

For instance, according to Huffington, 13 percent of African-American males
cannot vote because they have been convicted of a felony. Considering 4.6
million black males voted in 1996, this is a staggering percentage of
minorities barred from entering the voting booth. Even worse, while blacks
are only 13 percent of drug users, they compose 74 percent of all drug
offenders in prison. Something is clearly wrong with this picture, and it
is not just at the national level.

Not long ago, in a similar vein, Michigan passed a law that defined the
legal amount of powder cocaine or crack cocaine which could lead to
mandatory minimum sentencing. The amount of crack necessary - a drug
associated with lower class, urban populations - was disproportionately
less than the amount needed to lock away the typically affluent cocaine user.

What lawmakers at the state and federal level have failed to realize is
that these laws, racist or not, are a waste of taxpayer money and fail in
practice. Rather than snag drug kingpins, they should rehabilitate users,
treat addiction or reduce the supply of drugs. Current quick fix laws
wrongly punish minor, nonviolent users. People who need rehabilitation are
stuck in prison for 20 years despite the fact that treatment options are
cheaper and more effective than lost prison terms. And once again, prisons
are clogged with a disproportionate minority population.

Perhaps most egregiously, these laws allow Congress to usurp the power of
our legal system by taking power out of the hands of judges with mandatory
minimums. Judges are supposedly allowed discretion in the interpretation of
laws, but mandatory minimums deny them this power, almost universally at
the expense of minority drug offenders. Judges should be allowed to weigh
previous convictions and the severity of the crime possibly allowing
offenders a treatment option; instead, mandatory minimums place
across-the-board the power in the hands of legislators. Not one aspect of
these laws can justify the results of this flagrantly unfair system.

Our drug laws are flawed on financial, legal and moral grounds. New laws
that continue the bias against minorities and the poor only compound the
program. Add to that mandatory minimum sentencing and the lack of emphasis
on rehabilitation and it is no surprise that we have unfair, ineffective
legislation that helps no one but the people in power.