DISPARITY WEAKENS U.S. JUSTICE SYSTEM

A RECENT REPORT by Human Rights Watch has documented something
African-Americans have known for years: The U.S. war on illegal drugs has
been waged unfairly against blacks.

The findings in "Punishment and Prejudice: Racial Disparities in the War on
Drugs" are based on U.S. government statistics. Among other proposals, HRW
calls for the repeal of mandatory sentencing laws for drug offenders,
improvement in drug-abuse treatment, alternative sanctions and an end to
racial profiling.

The popular perception is that African-Americans are America's greatest
drug offenders. But whites use illegal narcotics at a rate five times that
among African-Americans. Yet blacks are far more often arrested and
imprisoned for drug offenses. In the 10 states with the largest disparities
(including New Jersey), blacks are jailed for illegal drug offenses up to
57 times more often than whites. Their numbers have swollen America's penal
institutions at an alarming rate.

According to HRW executive director Ken Roth, black and white drug
offenders get radically different treatment in the American justice system.
Such differences, he said, are "not only profoundly unfair to blacks, they
also corrode the American ideal of equal justice for all."

In 1996, the most recent year for which complete statistics were available,
blacks constituted 62.6 percent of all drug offenders admitted to state
prisons. Whites represented 36.7 percent, according to HRW, which analyzed
prison admissions in 37 states based on data gathered by the Bureau of
Justice Statistics of the Department of Justice.

Blacks have long been aware of their unfair treatment by local police and
other law enforcement agencies that send them to jail in numbers far
greater than others who violate U.S. drug laws.

Jimmy Johnston, a former drug user who was born in Trenton, N.J., 29 years
ago, put it this way: "Look, I was out in the streets of Trenton, Newark
and New York City for 11 years. I know what went on. Nobody can tell me
that it's mainly blacks involved in drugs. Whites are even more involved.
They use and handle far more narcotics than we ever thought of using.

"But they don't get busted in the same way African-Americans do. The cops
stayed on us. They watched every move. But with whites, the whole attitude
is different. They move a lot of stuff, and a lot of times the cops either
look the other way or concentrate on us so much that the white guys who
commit the same offenses are sometimes ignored."

Johnson is well aware that blacks are often sent to jail while whites who
commit the same offenses stay home. "I don't have to read a report," he
insisted in a telephone interview. "I was on the scene and I know what goes
down."

Johnson's views jibe with the HRW report that said, "In poor black
neighborhoods, drug transactions are more likely to be conducted on the
streets, in public and between strangers." By contrast, in white
neighborhoods -- working-class through upper-class -- drugs are more likely
to be sold indoors, in bars, clubs and private homes. It's easier and costs
less for police to target minority neighborhoods because drug transactions
are generally more visible.

The result: Prisons throughout the United States are overcrowded with
African-American inmates. The implications are far more ominous than unfair
treatment of black drug offenders alone.

Jimmy Johnson was right when he pointed out that it is "not logical that
the only abuse of blacks by the U.S. Justice Department involves drug
arrests. They use racial profiling to lock up African-Americans for all
sorts of criminal activities. We're supposed to be treated just like others
under the law. But we're not."

HRW used the government's own data to issue a report that largely
substantiates what African-Americans have experienced for generations. It
amounts to a denial of equal protection under the law as provided by the
14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Lewis is a retired columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

The question that's left is whether the government will do anything about
such blatant abuses or simply allow them to continue.