Pubdate: Wed, 3 Apr 2002 Source: Village Voice (NY) Copyright: 2002 Village Voice Media, Inc Contact: http://www.villagevoice.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/482 Column: Mondo Washington Author: James Ridgeway Note: Only the drug policy related section of the column is posted below. Cited: Families Against Mandatory Minimums http://www.famm.org/ The Sentencing Project http://www.sentencingproject.org/ 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. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake