FEDERAL DRUG OFFENDERS SPENDING LESS TIME IN PRISON, STUDY FINDS

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 1992-98 time span 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," said 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 judicial 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. In western North Carolina, the average soared from 36 months to
103 months.

In Texas, the Dallas-based Northern District had a 3 percent increase
in the average sentence, from 102 months in 1992 to 105 months in
1998. But the average sentence dropped in the other three districts:
39 percent for the Eastern District, 30 percent for the Southern
District and 37 percent for the Western District.

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 with 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 with 500 grams of cocaine.

Bob Weiner, spokesman for U.S. drug-policy coordinator Barry
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 nonpartisan 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 Mr.
Russell, Justice spokesman.

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. The report
"suggests that U.S. prosecutors are not targeting the most serious
cases."

The matter is with the courts and out of the Customs Service's hands,
said spokesman Dean Boyd. "Customs has absolutely no control over
sentencing," he said. "We don't do sentencing."