Pubdate: Wed, 04 Aug 2010 Source: San Jose Mercury News (CA) Copyright: 2010 San Jose Mercury News Contact: http://www.mercurynews.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/390 CHANGE IN CRACK COCAINE SENTENCING A RARE VICTORY FOR BIPARTISANSHIP When President Barack Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act on Tuesday, it represented more than just the reversal of a law that punished black defendants more harshly than whites. It was also a rare victory for bipartisanship. In 1986, amid the explosion of the crack cocaine epidemic, Congress mandated that anyone caught with 5 grams of crack receive a minimum sentence of five years in prison, the same as the penalty for possessing 500 grams of powder cocaine. The law has led to severe racial inequities in sentencing, since crack predominates in poorer and African-American communities. According to the advocacy group Families Against Mandatory Minimums, blacks comprise 82 percent of defendants sentenced to federal prison for crack cocaine, and the average length of their sentences is 37 months longer than those for powder cocaine. Under the new law, the disparity will be significantly reduced, though unfortunately not eliminated. It will take 28 grams of crack -- the level presumed to indicate drug dealing -- to trigger the five-year minimum sentence. In this political environment, it's hard to imagine any politician willing to risk being labeled as soft on crime, yet not a single lawmaker opposed the measure. It was the right thing to do, and Congress did it. Imagine that. - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D