FEDERAL DRUG PROSECUTIONS AT ALL-TIME HIGH IN THE '90S

But Offenders Are Spending Less Time In Jail

WASHINGTON - Convicted federal drug offenders are spending less time behind
bars, but more of them are being prosecuted, according to a new study of
judicial records.

The shorter sentences, over a 1992-1998 timespan that includes most of the
Clinton Administration, suggest that federal judges and prosecutors are
finding ways around tough mandatory minimum sentences mandated by Congress
to crack down on drug traffickers.

To some experts, the findings also suggest that federal agents are
increasingly nailing "small fry" drug offenders rather than the kingpins
whom federal agencies are uniquely suited to pursue.

"There has been an undue emphasis on the lesser figures in drug trafficking
because they're easier to convict," commented U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter,
R-Pa., a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The study, by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a government
performance analysis center in Washington that is associated with Syracuse
University, found that the average federal drug sentence dropped about 20
percent between 1992 and 1998.

The Justice Department did not dispute the figures. "We have been aware of
this trend for several years," said department spokesman John Russell.

For the Drug Enforcement Administration, which brings most drug cases to
federal courts, the average sentence dropped to 75 months in 1998 from 94
months in 1992.

Results for individual districts varied dramatically. DEA-instigated
federal drug sentences in the New York City area, for example, fell to less
than 70 months in 1998 from over 140 months in 1992. Meanwhile, in western
North Carolina the average soared from 36 months to 103 months.

Nationally, the number of federal drug prosecutions rose to an all-time
high of 21,571 in 1998, up 16 percent from 1992.

DEA and the U.S. Customs Service, the second biggest narcotics enforcement
agency, remain strongly focused on marijuana. In 1998, their convictions
involving marijuana totaled 34 percent of all their drug cases, compared to
28 percent for powder cocaine and 17 percent for crack cocaine.

The marijuana quantities are large, however. To rate a 5-year mandatory
federal drug sentence, a trafficker would have to be dealing more than 100
kilos of marijuana compared to 500 grams of cocaine.

Bob Weiner, spokesman for U.S. drug-policy coordinator Barry R. McCaffrey,
called the new report "a mixed batch of statistics." He said it was obvious
most arrests involve smaller cases. "There's only one person at the top of
the pyramid and everybody else is down from that," he said.

"Big cases, big problems. Little cases, little problems," said Eric E.
Sterling, president of the Criminal Justice Policy foundation, a Washington
non-partisan think-tank. "The U.S. Justice Department is focusing too much
of its effort on low level cases."

But analysts also say that federal judges, who have long complained that
mandatory sentencing is too rigid and severe, have found a way around those
mandates with the cooperation of congress and the Clinton administration.

One of those bypasses is a "safety valve" provision adopted by Congress in
1994, giving judges more flexibility in sentencing low-level cases. Since
then, drug defendants who cooperate with prosecutors have been rewarded
with shorter sentences, said Justice spokesman Russell.

Federal agencies should do more to go after kingpins because local police
don't have the resources, said Mark Mauer, assistant director for The
Sentencing Project, a Washington-based policy research and advocacy group.

"The justification for federal prosecution is that they have the resources
to handle complex, high level cases," he said.