RACE REPORT SINGLES OUT ILLINOIS FOR DRUG-CONVICTION DISPARITY

Black men end up in Illinois prisons on drug convictions at a rate 57
times greater than white men, the most striking gap of any state
examined by a new study of racial disparity in the nationwide war on
drugs.

As a result, 90 percent of drug offenders admitted to state prisons in
Illinois are African-American, the highest percentage in the country,
according to the report released Wednesday by Human Rights Watch, a
New York-based organization that monitors human rights worldwide.

The study, which analyzed data reported to the U.S. Department of
Justice by 37 states, showed that black men across the nation are far
more likely to go to prison for drug crimes than are white men--even
though blacks are estimated to account for less than 13 percent of the
nationwide population and government figures indicate that most drug
users are white.

"Five times as many whites use drugs as blacks," said Jamie Fellner, a
staff lawyer who wrote the report for the group, a New York-based
organization that monitors human rights worldwide. "But blacks
comprise the great majority of drug offenders sent to prison. Race is
clearly a factor in the process."

The new figures could add fuel to debate about the role that racial
profiling plays in police work and prosecution. And though the notion
that race influences how law enforcement officials do their jobs is
nothing new, advocates hope the mounting statistical evidence will
produce change.

The new report, which Human Rights Watch said was the first
state-by-state analysis of its kind, tracks with other recent studies
showing a quantifiable link between race and admission to prison.

One study released earlier this year by the National Council on Crime
and Delinquency found that, when charged with the same offenses, black
youths were much more likely to be locked up than were white youths
with comparable criminal backgrounds.

Human Rights Watch researchers say that a host of factors are
responsible for the disparity, including a heavier concentration of
police sting operations in minority neighborhoods and a greater
likelihood that black youths will be prosecuted once they are caught.

Law enforcement officials say that they don't purposely target
minorities for arrest and prosecution and that they are working to
come up with alternatives to incarceration that can help drug
offenders of all racial backgrounds go straight.

But critics of the criminal justice system say the latest statistics
are evidence that more sweeping reform is needed.

In the study, researchers for Human Rights Watch analyzed demographic
and conviction information about hundreds of thousands of inmates
admitted to state prisons all over the country in 1996, the most
recent year for which complete data was available when the study
began. A total of 37 states voluntarily provided the information to
the Justice Department that year.

Overall, the study found that all 37 states incarcerated blacks at
much higher rates than whites. Weighting numbers to account for the
smaller size of the nationwide black population, the study concluded
that in the 37 states black men are sent to state prison for drug
convictions at a rate 13 times that of white men.

In New York, black men were sent to prison for drug convictions at a
rate 11 times greater than whites. In Maryland, they found the
incarceration rate 28 times greater for black men. In Minnesota, the
rate for black men was 39 times greater.

Nationwide, blacks make up 62 percent of drug offenders admitted to
state prisons, according to the report. In seven of the states, blacks
constituted between 80 and 90 percent of all people sent to prison for
drug convictions.

Those figures were even starker in Illinois, especially when
researchers considered the rate of prison admissions relative to
overall population. Out of every 100,000 white male adult residents of
the state, 20 were sent to prison during the study period for
violation of drug laws.

Meanwhile, of the same number of black adult males, 1,146 were
admitted to prison for the same reasons--a rate 57 times greater.

Of the total number of people sent to Illinois prisons for drug
convictions that year, 90 percent were African-American, the study
found. While blacks make up only 15 percent of the state's population,
they constitute 65 percent of the prison population as a whole. Whites
make up 25 percent of Illinois inmates, and Hispanics account for 10
percent.

The researchers said they don't know specifically why Illinois'
incarceration rate for black men was so high, or why there was such a
range among the states. Among the 10 states with the greatest
disparities, the rate at which black men ended up in prison for drug
crimes ranged from 27 to 57 times the rate for white men.

But some lawyers and advocates argue that police and prosecutors treat
blacks differently than they treat whites. For starters, blacks--and
black men in particular--are stopped by police more often, said
William Hooks, president of the Cook County Bar Association, a group
of African-American lawyers and judges.

If blacks are searched more often, they will be arrested more often,
he said.

Young and first-time offenders are treated differently once they're in
police custody, too, said Hooks, who is also a Chicago criminal
defense attorney. Police tend to call a young white man's parents and
try more frequently to quickly end a case, he said.

"When I go to court with my white clients in Cook County, oftentimes I
am met by the arresting officer and pulled aside," Hooks said. "The
attitude is, `How can we resolve this? We don't want to hurt her."'

Hooks said he tries to help that client be diverted from the court
system and into a counseling program because it's in her best interests.

"But it hurts deep inside that my other clients don't get the same
offer," he said. His black clients are often eligible for the same
treatment, he said, "but it's not this aggressive approach to get them
out of the system."

Once those marks show up on a youth's record, said researcher Fellner,
there's a systemic bias against him.

"Black kids are going to have more arrests on their records," she
said. "Each time you go through the turnstile, you are treated more
harshly."

But many law enforcement officials dispute claims that "racial
profiling" by police or prosecutors is the reason why more
African-Americans are in prison for drug convictions.

"I've asked this question of other officers, of corrections officers,"
said Bob Wallace, training director and public information officer for
the National Association of Chiefs of Police. "Probably the accurate
answer is because the majority of people who commit these crimes are
of the African-American culture."

Wallace said he believes that some police officers unintentionally
allow personal observations about race to influence how they do their
jobs. But he said that doesn't fully explain the demographics of the
prison population.

"In the high-crime areas, you do have a high population of
African-American people," Wallace said. "There are a lot of good
people of all races. Unfortunately, where you have poor standards of
living, you're going to find people looking for quick ways of making
money."

Prosecutors deny that decisions on whether to pursue cases are
influenced by race. Many prosecutors are now formalizing so-called
diversion programs in an attempt to help more young and first-time
offenders of all races avoid prison.

In Cook County, half of all first- and second-time drug arrestees get
drug treatment instead of prosecution, said Bob Benjamin, spokesman
for State's Atty. Dick Devine.

"You're trying to get them before they go too far on the escalator,
with more and more drug use, more and more misery," he said.

As for whether a suspect's skin color makes any difference in
determining whether to proceed with prosecution, Benjamin said, "Race
is not a factor at all. Ever."

Advocates for Human Rights Watch say they hope law enforcement
agencies around the country will adopt such diversion programs.

"The solution to this racial inequity is not to incarcerate more
whites," Fellner said, "but to reduce the use of prison for low-level
drug offenders and to increase the availability of substance abuse
treatment."