RACIAL DIVIDE HUGE IN DRUG PUNISHMENT

The first county-by-county look at U.S. drug imprisonment rates uses
hard numbers to document what many already know: The drug war is
primarily waged against African-Americans "despite solid evidence
that they are no more likely than their white counterparts" to use
or sell drugs.

And Erie County is one of the places where that drug war hits blacks hardest.

"In Erie County, African-Americans are admitted to prison for a drug
offense at 30 times the rate of whites," according to the Justice
Policy Institute, which analyzed per-capita drug imprisonment rates
in large counties.

That ratio ranked Erie County 26th out of the 198 counties in the
new study, "The Vortex: The Concentrated Racial Impact of Drug
Imprisonment and the Characteristics of Punitive Counties."

The local disparity is best summed up by City Judge Robert T.
Russell Jr., who presides over Buffalo's drug court and is a past
chairman of the National Association of Drug Court Professionals.

"Mind-boggling," Russell said when told of the study's local findings.

JPI, citing other research, notes that it's not that blacks use or
sell drugs more. Other studies have shown little difference between
the races. For instance, the federal government's 2006 National
Survey on Drug Use and Health showed 9.8 percent of blacks using
drugs in a given month, compared with 8.5 percent of whites.

Granted, the crime associated with the inner-city drug trade might
account for some of the disparity. But the vast majority of those
arrested are not kingpins or gang members; they're low-level
sellers, many of whom are addicts themselves, said Jason Ziedenberg,
JPI's executive director. And those kinds of users and dealers exist
in the suburbs and rural communities, as well.

So why the huge disparities? Part of it is the view that, when
blacks are involved in a crime, it's a personal failure worthy of
punishment, whereas when whites are involved, it's a societal
problem worthy of treatment. Whites also are likely to have
better lawyers, the study noted. Mandatory minimum sentences also
hit blacks harder, as do disparate policing policies.

Put it all together, and you have a concentrated effort that
disproportionately disrupts African-American lives, families and
communities and pushes too many blacks outside of society's margins.

And if you think that makes sense, ask yourself one question: What
would the "war on drugs" look like if the prison admission rates for
blacks and whites were reversed?

We know what the answer would be. But don't count on too many people
even asking that question.

Erie County District Attorney Frank J. Clark said that he hadn't
seen the study but that he'd already seen enough in an e-mail from
the Onondaga County DA to dismiss it.

Critics contend that the study distorts reality by, for instance,
not factoring in the relatively small size of the black population
in some counties. The Onondaga County DA complained to a Syracuse
newspaper that he could "prove the Earth is flat if I used their methodology."

But if cops, prosecutors and judges take that attitude and dismiss
the thrust of the study, that's exactly the kind of Earth they must
be living on. All they have to do is stroll through a prison with
their blinders off.

"Why are we playing a numbers game here?" asked Ziedenberg, whose
JPI wants to end the U.S. overreliance on prison. "Why aren't we
talking about solutions to these problems?"

You can bet we would be . . . if whites were disproportionately
targeted like this.