Disparities in Sentencing As Blacks Term Paper

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"African-Americans now serve virtually as much time in prison for a drug offense (58.7 months) as whites do for a violent offense (61.7 months)" (Compendium 2004, 112).The Commission reported in 2004 that "[r]evising the crack cocaine thresholds would better reduce the [sentencing] gap than any other single policy change, and it would dramatically improve the fairness of the federal sentencing system" (USSC 2004, 132). As a result, the African-American community's "[p]erceived improper racial disparity fosters disrespect for and lack of confidence in the criminal justice system..." (USSC 2002, 103).

There is proposed legislation seeking to reduce the differences between sentencing for possession of crack and powder cocaine, but this would still result in large numbers of Blacks being incarcerated. In fact, the majority of powder defendants are Hispanics (as seen in the table above), so decreasing the amount of powder required to trigger mandatory sentencing would not eliminate racial and ethnic disparity, as Hispanics may become the ones so discriminated against.

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Conclusion

The reason for the large numbers of racially discriminatory sentencing is the passage of a law in 1986 for simple possession of a small amount of crack cocaine that made Black defendants much more liable to spend time in prison, if they were street dealers of crack cocaine, rather than dealing powder, which, it has been shown, is essentially the same drug, as Blacks are the largest users of crack and the sentence for possession of crack is extremely high, compared to other offenses. As the Commission noted in a report to Congress in 1997, "federal cocaine policy inappropriately targets limited federal resources by placing the quantity triggers for the five-year mandatory minimum penalty for crack cocaine too low" (USSC 1997, 7).

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