Source: Arizona Daily Star

Contact: letters@azstarnet.com
Webpage: http://www.azstarnet.com/public/dnews/0902cv3.html

Nancy Hammerle: Weep not for crack dealers

By Nancy Hammerle

Thanks to liberal revisionism and today's cult of victimology, the
latest victim of the crack era may well be the truth.

Not long ago, crack cocaine devastated neighborhoods and ravaged
families like no drug before. Its victims included tiny, pained,
abandoned babies, neglected children, battered spouses, skeletal women
walking the streets, bystanders caught in the crossfire of crack
market wars, and fearwracked residents imprisoned at home.

These innocent victims have no place in the current politically correct
position on crack. Rather, revisionists with short memories are now
rallying around their own victim of crack: none other than the crack
dealer himself.

Inflamed by cries of racism and replete with misinformation, the
liberal causedujour is to reduce the disparities in sentencing
between crack cocaine and powdered cocaine offenders. Those disparities
are deliberately great, though not as great as critics claim. Out of
ignorance or deceit, they constantly cite the 100 to 1 ratio mandated
by Congress. However, that ratio does not refer to sentence length, but
to the amount of crack versus powder that triggers federal mandatory
minimums. The actual sentencing ratio for lesser amounts is typically 6
to 1; for greater amounts, it falls to 2 to 1.

These disparities were not controversial when they were first enacted.
They were welcomed by the black community and received bipartisan
support, including that of many members of the Congressional Black
Caucus. There were no accusations of a racially biased justice system
out to ensnare black men. Race was never an issue. Today, race seems to
be the only issue.

Opponents of the disparities, such as Maxine Waters and Jesse Jackson,
who termed the provision ``a moral disgrace'' condemning ``thousands of
young AfricanAmerican men to languish in prison,'' claim as proof of
an inherent racial animus that more than 90 percent of those sentenced
for crack cocaine are black, whereas more than 90 percent of those
sentenced for powdered cocaine are white. They blame the disparate
sentencing for the sorry fact that nearly onethird of young
AfricanAmerican men are involved with the criminal justice system.

These critics, however, overlook some important points. One is that
only 25 percent of incarcerated black men are imprisoned for
drugrelated offenses. Another is that young AfricanAmerican men,
contrary to popular mythology, were not forced by the white
establishment to get involved with crack. Those who did the crime knew
the time. They undertook the risk because there were great profits to
be wrested from the misery of their neighbors.

Which invokes the most salient point: The victims of crack were
overwhelmingly black. Few crack babies were white. Few whites
contracted AIDS through crackdriven prostitution. Far fewer whites
than blacks were victims of crack market turf wars. Fewer whites were
robbed to finance crack purchases. From foster homes to emergency
rooms, the victims were seldom white.

The disparities in sentencing thus were not implemented as part of some
``genocidal campaign'' to incarcerate a higher proportion of black men
and destroy the black community. Rather the disparities were designed
to protect the black community.

Some critics are even more delusional. Adrian Walker claims it is a
``myth'' that crack is ``more potent, more addictive, more lethal, and
more menacing'' than the powered cocaine favored by whites. Repeated
often enough, this will become received truth. Yet it flies so squarely
in the face of reality it approaches insanity. Doctors, police, users
and dealers alike proclaim the extreme harmfulness, addictiveness and
violence associated with crack. The disproportionate sentencing policy
correctly reflected the drug's disproportionate impact.

The lengthy prison terms of our crackdown on crack is largely
responsible for the reduction in violent crime we have enjoyed these
last several years. They made lowincome black neighborhoods livable
again, especially since crackinvolved inmates admit to more numerous
drug and nondrug crimes, and to more violent crimes, than inmates
incarcerated for involvement with other drugs.

The U.S. Sentencing Commission has recommended that Congress greatly
reduce the sentencing disparities. Perhaps the time has come to whittle
them down somewhat, but many liberals insist they be eliminated
altogether. If these revisionists truly believe that our sentencing
policy is a mere racist ploy and that crack is not so dangerous, then
they are so steeped in denial, and so short of memory, that we can't
help but ask, ``What the heck have they been smoking?''

Nancy Hammerle is professor of economics at Stonehill College in North
Easton, Mass., where she researches the economics of social issues.
KnightRidder/Tribune Information Services distributed the column.