DRUG BILL AIMS TO CUT SENTENCING DISPARITY

Alters Guidelines For Crack Crimes

A federal commission has taken a small step toward eliminating a
cocaine sentencing disparity that has upset civil rights advocates for
almost two decades.

The U.S. Sentencing Commission recently approved a change in federal
court sentencing guidelines for crimes involving crack cocaine. The
change will take effect Nov. 1, unless Congress votes to override it.

"This would be a small step toward closing up the disparity in
sentencing for crimes involving crack cocaine and powdered cocaine,"
said Timothy W. Hoover, a federal public defender in Buffalo. "This is
just a start, and it's an incomplete reform, but it's a step, at least."

Since the late 1980s, federal sentences for crack cocaine crimes have
been far more severe than those for crimes involving equal amounts of
powdered cocaine. Because crack is a bigger problem in poor urban
neighborhoods and powdered cocaine use is more prevalent among the
wealthy, civil rights groups claimed the disparity was unfair to
minority groups.

For example, a person convicted of possessing 5 grams of crack faces a
five-year minimum mandatory sentence in federal court.

The same person would have to possess 500 grams of powdered cocaine to
get the same mandatory sentence.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People,
Families Against Mandatory Minimums and several other organizations
have been trying for many years to get the disparity eliminated.

"Eighty percent of the offenders who have been affected by this
disparity over the years have been African-American," said Kara
Gotsch, director of advocacy for the Sentencing Project, a sentencing
reform organization.

"It's not true that only blacks use crack and only whites use powdered
cocaine. But law enforcement agencies usually focus their efforts on
communities of color, where drug-dealing is pretty much done in the
open, rather than behind closed doors," she said.

An amendment approved last month by the Sentencing Commission would
not eliminate the mandatory minimums but would decrease the advised
sentences for many crack cocaine crimes. Some sentences would be cut
by 20 percent.

"It would not eliminate all the disparities that exist," Hoover said,
"but it's something that would be welcomed by people who advocate fair
sentencings."

Gotsch called the proposed change "a tweaking of the sentencing
guidelines that is necessary and warranted." But she called on
Congress to ratify sweeping reforms that would equalize the penalties
between crack and powdered cocaine offenses.

Richard J. Arcara, chief judge of the federal courts in Western New
York, said he believes the tougher sentences on crack crimes were
enacted because of concerns about the highly addictive nature of
crack. Arcara said he does not believe the law was intended to
discriminate against any race.

Arcara said he will be watching to see what happens with the proposal,
but he declined to give his opinion on it.