COCAINE SENTENCING DISPARITY HEATS UP AFTER SENATE
ACTION

Bill Narrows Gap In Jail-Term Standards

WASHINGTON (AP) -- It's a dispute that has engulfed the drug debate
for years: how to end the disparity between mandatory prison sentences
for possession of crack and powder cocaine.

The law requires a five-year prison term for anyone convicted of
possessing 5 grams or more of crack. But a person has to be found
guilty of holding at least 500 grams of powder cocaine to fall under
the same mandate.

Critics contend that that 100-fold difference targets minorities and
the poor for jail while allowing more upscale users of the costlier
powder cocaine to go free. Defenders of the thresholds say crack is
more addictive and is associated more with violent crime.

The debate grew thornier last week: A provision the Senate tucked into
a bankruptcy bill would lower the threshold at which powder cocaine
offenders would go behind bars.

The fate of the Senate-passed bill, as well as that of the cocaine
measure, is uncertain. The House has passed its own version of
bankruptcy legislation but has not addressed the cocaine issue.

The Senate language is drawing its share of criticism and praise.
Supporters say it would end the sentencing disparity, remain tough on
crime and silence allegations of racism. Opponents say it will further
crowd prisons.

"Rather than reduce the disparity, this would just increase the number
of minority offenders going to prison," said Marc Mauer, assistant
director of The Sentencing Project, a Washington-based advocacy group.
"Two-thirds of powder cocaine offenders who would now go to prison
under this amendment are Hispanic whites."

He said the solution is "locking up fewer crack offenders, not locking
up more powder offenders."

Many judges, including several conservatives on the federal bench,
also have criticized Congress' practice of mandating sentences. They
say it removes their discretion to weigh a person's role in a crime,
the circumstances and other mitigating factors.

Supporters of the cocaine measure by Sen. Spencer Abraham, R-Mich.,
counter that drugs are illegal regardless. Getting tougher is the
answer, they argue, not getting more lenient.

The Senate measure would narrow the disparity by reducing the
incarceration threshold for powder cocaine possession from 500 grams
to 50 grams.

The Clinton administration has sought to narrow the disparity by
raising the threshold for crack cocaine to 25 grams and lowering it to
250 grams for powder cocaine

"The position of the administration has been that the Abraham proposal
accomplishes a very different and not necessarily positive objective
than the administration proposal," said Bob Weiner, spokesman for
White House drug policy director Barry McCaffrey.

Paul H. Robinson, a Northwestern University law school professor and
former member of the U.S. Sentencing Commission, said the public has
been misled about the reasoning for the disparity.

"This is probably the most irresponsible public discussion I have ever
heard," Robinson said.

He said there are three significant differences between crack and
powder cocaine: how quickly a person becomes addicted, the amount of
violence associated with each and the doses or potency of the amount
seized.

"Treating crack and powder cocaine the same, that would be a
distortion," he said. "The same weight of powder and crack represents
more doses of crack than it does powder. I think as a general
principle, changing our sentencing policy because it has a disparate
impact on one community or another -- whether racial, sexual,
religious or anything -- that doesn't make sense."