RIGHTING RACIAL WRONGS

Only the foolishly optimistic could be naive enough to believe the civil
rights movement ended racism in America. That lie is played out everyday
around the country in the criminal justice system.

Our justice system was originally intended to mete out punishment equally,
regardless of a defendant's color, economic background or social status.
But the cruel reality is that the system has evolved into one that punishes
minorities much more harshly than their white counterparts. Over the years,
the system has broken down into two separate and unequal systems - one for
whites and one for minorities.

This inequality is thorough, running from the top to the bottom of the
system. Juvenile minorities are just as likely as their adult counterparts
to face not only harsher treatment, but harsher sentences as well.

A report by the National Council on Crime and Delinquency released recently
found that black and Hispanic youth are more likely to be arrested,
sentenced to longer terms and held without bail than whites who enter the
criminal justice system.

While the racial disparities represented by the death penalty are common
knowledge, the extent of today's race-based injustice was measured more
accurately in a report released last week by the Leadership Conference on
Civil Rights and the Leadership Conference Education Fund.

Findings include:

- - Black offenders comprise a third of those arrested for drug use and
almost 60 percent of those sentenced for drug offenses. That is true even
though blacks and whites have about the same rate of drug usage.

- - Of the 2 million people in prison, 70 percent are black or Hispanic.

The report also documented practices like that of the U.S. Attorney's
Office in Los Angeles, which prosecuted hundreds of blacks and Hispanics
for crack cocaine use. No whites were prosecuted, even though whites make
up about a third of the frequent users of crack.

Another pattern included one in New York in which police targeted blacks
and Hispanics for their "stop and frisk" procedure. Eighty-four percent of
those stopped by police were black and Hispanic, while they make up a
little more than half of the city's population.

The report appropriately points out that such flagrant mistreatment sets a
tone that allows corruption, like that of the Los Angeles Police
Department, to flourish. There, blacks and Hispanics were targeted by
police who planted evidence, lied under oath and arrested them without reason.

Time and time again we've heard judges and lawyers say that the system,
while not perfect, is the best in the world.

It may be the best in the world, but it still is broken and needs to be fixed.

The report was released with the goal of beginning a national dialogue. The
goal is appropriate, given that this country is far from putting race and
racial animosity behind it.

And it would be appropriate to take the dialogue to the national level,
where politicians and policy makers can take the lead in eliminating
justice system injustices.