PRISONS BELONG IN PUBLIC HANDS

To the Editor:

Re "Number of Prisoners Grows Despite Crime Reduction" (news article, Aug.
10):

The latest Justice Department statistics on the United States prison
population offer compelling evidence of the racially disproportionate impact
of the war on drugs. Fifty-seven percent of all inmates in state prisons on
drug charges are black and 20 percent are white -- even though blacks make
up only 12 percent of the country's population and there are five times more
white drug users than black.

This imbalance contradicts the principles of justice and equal protection of
the laws that should be the bedrock of any democracy.

Jamie Fellner, New York, Aug. 10, 2000
The writer is associate counsel, Human Rights Watch.