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Friday, April 4, 2008

This spring, DPA launched a federal campaign to end the cruel and costly crack/cocaine sentencing disparity. The disparity creates enormous racial inequities in the federal justice system and leads federal law enforcement agencies to waste taxpayer money on locking up low-level, nonviolent offenders.
 
The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings on the issue a month ago, and the Senate is now considering three bills that would either reduce or eliminate the disparity. This week, with help from supporters around the country, DPA turned up the heat.
 
Generous donations from reformers made it possible for DPA to call supporters in 10 states this week, and ask them to call key senators in support of ending the disparity. The result was that senators' phones were ringing off the hook, and the number of calls let their staff know that this issue is important to constituents.
 
Callers were asking their senators to support or co-sponsor S. 1711, a bill introduced by Sen. Joe Biden (DE) that would completely eliminate the disparity. Right now, the disparity is 100-to-1, which means that the amount of powder cocaine that triggers a mandatory minimum federal sentence is one hundred times greater than the amount of crack cocaine required to trigger the same sentence.
 
This disparity, which was enacted in the 1980s based on myths about the effects of crack cocaine, has created racial inequities in the justice system because people of color are more likely to be sentenced under crack cocaine laws -- even though two thirds of crack cocaine users are white. 
 
In addition, the disparity wastes taxpayer money. The crack mandatory minimums were enacted to punish major traffickers, but the vast majority of people subjected to them are low-level offenders. A recent report by the U.S. Sentencing Commission found that almost 70% of federal crack cocaine defendants had only low-level involvement in drug activity.
 
As the campaign to end the disparity moves forward, DPA will continue to urge senators to sign onto S. 1711. Bill Piper, DPA's director of national affairs, said, "Between the flood of calls and emails from our supporters and the meetings we've set up with influential clergy, civil rights activists, and business leaders, we are making sure these senators hear our message that the time has come to end the sentencing disparity and restore some sanity to our drug policies."