CONGRESSIONAL CRACKS

Far From Reforming Matters, A Move To Revise Drug Sentences Would Actually
Make A Bad System Worse - And More Costly

THE ROAD to hell is surely paved with legislators' good intentions.
Instead, maybe it should just be paved with legislators.

Congress is considering a proposal that must have been written by someone
on a drug-induced hallucination.

In the interest of "reforming" federal drug laws, Congress would reduce the
threshold of possessing powdered cocaine for a mandatory five-year sentence
from 500 grams to 50. (Fifty grams is less than two ounces.)

This maneuver is supposed to reduce racial disparity in sentencing. Not
only does it fail to do that, it would increase the number of federal
inmates by thousands and it would send to prison many more African
Americans, precisely the racial group the bill is intended to aid. And,
despite the boasts of its backers, the legislation doesn't lay a finger on
drug kingpins.

Possessing 100 times more powdered cocaine than crack cocaine is required
for a five-year federal sentence, even though the two forms of the drug are
pharmacologically the same. That's a sore point because blacks account for
84 percent of convictions for crack.

A group of federal judges, the U.S. Sentencing Commission and the White
House oppose reducing the powdered cocaine minimum. Instead, they all
prefer the idea of increasing the amount of crack cocaine needed to trigger
a five-year sentence.

Seems like a bit of sanity.

Our courts are jammed with drug defendants. Our prisons are overflowing
with inmates convicted of simple drug possession. And our streets are
increasingly filled with ex-cons whose lives have been torn up because of
over-zealous drug laws.

Politics makes people crazy, apparently.

No tough-on-crime politician wants to reduce punishments. Elections loom.
How much more popular to increase penalties for drug crimes while
pretending to battle the racially skewed results produced by present-day
drug statutes.

The Republican proposal sponsored by Sen. Spencer Abraham of Michigan aims,
in his words, "to send the message loud and clear to drug kingpins and
crack peddlers that the price of business is going up, not down."

Abraham should also point out that his bill would send costs of
incarceration up, not down. Plus, almost a third of the new convicts would
be black, according to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, while 48 percent would
be Hispanic.

If Abraham and his GOP colleagues really want to send a message, they
should start a thorough re-examination and restructuring of federal drug
laws. Listen to the judges who hear these cases daily. And while we're at
it, let's throw out mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenders. That
straitjacket clogs the courts and jails, too.

The present system is insane. And locking up more people in pursuit of
racial "justice" would just make it nuttier.