U.S. WAR ON DRUGS SINGLES OUT BLACKS, REPORT FINDS

More Likely To Be Jailed: Paper Says There Are Five Times More White Drug Users

WASHINGTON - Peer into an average U.S. prison cell and the face staring
back is likely to be black, a consequence of the decades-long war on drugs
that has been waged disproportionately against blacks, according to a Human
Rights Watch report released today.

The human rights group analyzed U.S. government statistics and found a
stark difference in the way blacks and whites are treated by the criminal
justice system.

The document states that there are five times more white drug users than
blacks users, but blacks make up about two-thirds of all drug offenders
admitted to state prisons. In some states, blacks constitute between 80%
and 90% of all drug offenders sent to prison.

"The grossly different rates at which blacks and whites are sent to prison
for drug offences raises a clear warning flag concerning the equity and
fairness of drug enforcement across the country," the report said.

While blacks have always been likelier to be imprisoned than whites, the
gap became a chasm in the 1980s as the United States turned to harsher and
harsher sentencing laws in a bid to contain the trade in illegal drugs.

The resulting lock 'em up mentality has given the United States the highest
incarceration rate of any Western democracy. The state and federal prison
population has quadrupled since 1980 to almost 2 million and the rate of
incarceration has jumped from 139 per 100,000 residents in 1980 to 468 in 1998.

In comparison, Canada's incarceration rate is 143 inmates per 100,000
residents.

The rate for black Americans is even higher, 1,547 per 100,000 black
residents. In places such as Texas and Oklahoma, that rate exceeds 2,000
per 100,000.

About 400,000 inmates are in prison for non-violent drug offences, a number
that even the leader of the war on drugs, retired General Barry McCaffrey,
has likened to a "drug gulag."

The biggest reason for the racial disparity is the different way that crack
cocaine -- favoured by blacks -- is treated compared with powdered cocaine
- -- which tends to be used by whites. A user caught with 5 grams of crack
gets the same five years in prison as someone caught with 500 grams of
powdered cocaine. There is no chemical difference between the two forms of
the drug.

Because blacks tend to be poorer and live in inner cities, their drug
markets tend to be on the streets, which makes them more public, more
violent and more noticed by police and politicians. Although whites use
just as many drugs as blacks, they tend to buy, sell and use in homes and
businesses, making it less of a public nuisance and more difficult for the
police to intervene.

"The rationale is that crack markets have been associated with a lot more
violence than the powdered cocaine markets," said Alfred Blumstein, a
researcher who studies the issue at the Heinz School of Public Policy and
Management at Carnegie Mellon University.

Anti-drug efforts have also been concentrated on low-income inner city
neighbourhoods, netting more blacks than whites. In those areas, police
often target residents in "stop and frisk" operations where they chat to
suspicious looking people and quickly go through their pockets looking for
drugs or guns. Similar searches are unknown in white suburbs.

Mr. Blumstein has undertaken three studies of white and black criminality
over the last two decades. He found that the ratio of whites and blacks
arrested for serious crimes like murder and robbery closely reflected the
ratio of whites and blacks in the prison population.

But for drug offences, the relationship appeared to break down, with many
more blacks than whites ending up in prison.

"It suggests other factors are coming in," he said. "It could be
differences in prior record, differences in employment or discrimination. I
can't sort it out yet."

Despite the number of people being locked away, the fight against drugs has
had ambiguous results. The price of drugs, which should increase as dealing
becomes more dangerous, has actually dropped. Abuse of traditional drugs
like cocaine has dropped but new drugs like Ecstasy and methamphetamines
are increasingly popular.

So far, U.S. politicians have shown no inclination to tamper with mandatory
sentencing drug laws. Any loosening would open them to charges of being
soft on crime, an allegation which can often lead to electoral defeat.