STUDY: A RACIAL DIVIDE IN DRUG SENTENCING

Nearly twice as many black men women are being imprisoned for drug offenses
than are whites, even though studies show there are five times more white
drug users than black ones, an international human rights organization said
Wednesday.

The report by Human Rights Watch joins a growing body of evidence compiled
by liberal advocacy groups showing racial disparities in the country's
soaring prison population. That population has quadrupled since 1980 and is
expected to surpass 2-million next year.

"These racial disparities are a national scandal," said Ken Roth, executive
director of Human Rights Watch. "Black and white drug offenders get
radically different treatment in the, American justice system. This is not
only profoundly unfair to blacks, it also corrodes the American ideal of
equal justice for all."

The report noted that the overwhelming bulk of the increase in the prison
population could be attributed to drug offenses.

The report said 62.7 percent of drug offenders sent to prison in 1996, the
last year for which complete statistics were available, were
African-American, while 36.7 percent were white.

The Census Bureau estimates that blacks currently make up about 12.8 percent
of the population and that whites, including Hispanic whites, are about 82.3
percent.

While Human Rights Watch underlined the racial. disparities in the criminal
justice system, other experts in the field said the issue was more
complicated than racism.

Experts at the Bureau of Criminal Justice Statistics, a division of the
justice Department, say that while studies indicate there are five times as
many white users of illegal drugs as black users, drug abuse among African-
Americans tends to be more chronic and involve harder drugs such as crack
cocaine and heroin.

Studies suggest black incarceration rates are still being fueled by the
crack epidemic of the 1980s, which helped produce a cadre of chronic drug
users, most of whom are above the age of 30. Many of these abusers have
either been imprisoned for long sentences or have been in and out of a
criminal justice system that fails to provide very much in the way of drug
treatment, said Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, director of the White House Office
of National Drug Control Policy.

"Regardless of how severe you wish to be on punishing them, you simply have
to give them a drug-free prison environment," McCaffrey said. "And there has
to be a follow-on component. That, I would allege is the largest issue."

In Wednesday's report, Human Rights Watch based its study on prison
admissions statistics in 1996. States voluntarily provide statistics to the
Justice Department, and the study does not include figures for the 13 states
that chose not to report statistics.

In much of the country, though, the report paints a picture of stark
disparities. In Illinois and Maryland, African- Americans represent 90
percent of those who were incarcerated for selling or using drugs. In five
other states --- Louisiana, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina and
Virginia --- blacks make up more than 80 percent of those imprisoned on drug
offenses.

Because so many African-Americans have been convicted of drug crimes and
sent to prison, 7 percent of all black people living in Texas and Oklahoma
are behind bars, the report said.

Researchers from Human Rights Watch point to a myriad of causes for the
disproportionately high number of blacks incarcerated for drugs. They note
that because so much of the drug activity in poor black neighborhoods is
conducted on the street, sellers and users are easier to see and arrest. And
they contend law enforcement agencies direct much of their resources to
combating drug activity in black areas, rather than in white neighborhoods.

Human Rights officials say the disparities need to be addressed by
politicians, including the two presidential contenders.