GOP: Joints Are Too Big, Man

THIS IS YOUR PRISON ON DRUGS

Because the cost of new prisons is beginning to drain the financial
resources of state governments and pose the prospect of tax increases,
conservatives in Congress and state governments are slowly loosening
drug laws to send offenders to treatment programs and relax mandatory
sentences. There are more than 300,000 people incarcerated for drug
offenses in the U.S.

In Congress, conservative Republican senators Jeff Sessions of Alabama
and Orrin Hatch of Utah have introduced a bill that would lower the
minimum mandatory sentence for crack cocaine and would make a stab at
ending the disparity in sentencing those with crack and those with
powdered cocaine. The sentences for crack are heavier than those for
powder, meaning that more blacks, who mostly use crack, go to jail and
for longer periods of time than do powder-snorting whites.

The Sessions-Hatch proposals represent a "symbolic victory," said
Julie Stewart, executive director of Families Against Mandatory
Minimums, a D.C.-based group. The Sessions-Hatch legislation just
scratches the surface, she added, but it's better than nothing, and,
except for the Black Caucus, Democrats take little interest in drug
sentencing. At least the Republicans, she added, "are saying there is
something wrong with crack sentences and we need to deal with it."

Connecticut, Indiana, North Dakota, Iowa, Mississippi, and Oregon all
have taken small steps to reduce minimum sentences. In addition to
abolishing mandatory minimums for first-time offenders, North Dakota
dropped plans for a new prison. A California proposition urges
treatment over jail.

In Louisiana, Governor M.J. Foster Jr. wants to cut government costs
($600 million a year) by getting addicts out of jail and reducing some
sentences. "It became very clear to us in the [state] senate," said
presiding officer John Hainkel, a New Orleans Republican, "that the
current corrections system is ludicrous from a fiscal standpoint, and
from a moral standpoint it is even worse."

Meanwhile, the Sentencing Project, a nonprofit group that tracks
criminal-justice issues, issued a report highlighting yet another
horrendous aspect of the drug war: More than 80 percent of women
prisoners are mothers, and 70 percent of them are single. Two out of
three have kids under 18.

The Welfare Reform Act of 1996, product of a coalescence of Clinton
Democrats and conservatives, included a little-noticed section that
denies welfare benefits to 92,000 women in prison for drugs, as well
as to their 135,000 children. Meanwhile, ex-offenders who served time
for murder or other violent crimes are fully eligible for welfare benefits.

Forty-two states have the ban in whole or in part, with eight states
(including New York and Connecticut), along with the District of
Columbia, opting out. Of the 92,000 women affected by the law, the
largest clusters are in California (37,825), Illinois (10,298), and
Georgia (8608).

Just who the law is aimed at is clear: poor women, especially those of
color. Overall, 48 percent of the women are African American or
Latina. In five states-Alabama, Delaware, Illinois, Mississippi, and
Virginia-the majority of the women are black.