The War on Drugs
The series of drug policies that collectively became
known as the War on Drugs has had a profound impact on both the number and composition of people who are incarcerated for a drug offense. As we
have noted, people of color are imprisoned for drug
offenses at rates that greatly exceed their proportion
of the drug-using population. This is due in part to
law enforcement practices, but is also related to drug
sentencing policies that have been enacted since the
1980s at both the federal and state level. Every state
now has some form of mandatory sentencing, often
applying to drug offenses. At the federal level, the
mandatory five- and ten-year sentencing policies adopted for crack cocaine offenses in the 1980s have
been the subject of much analysis and criticism for
the racial disparities they produce relative to powder cocaine offenses. While the federal sentencing
guidelines for crack cocaine offenses were amended
by the U.S. Sentencing Commission in 2007, the
legislatively enacted mandatory penalties are still in 8
place. Many analysts have contended that the racial
disparities resulting from these laws could have been
predicted in advance had lawmakers engaged in a
rational assessment of likely outcomes.
Posted By: DAVID JOHNSON
Monday, April 16th 2012 at 5:11PM
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