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Issues in Criminal Justice (JF)
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By Kathryn Wiley|Published Date: July 21, 2010
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The Washington Post has called on the House to agree with the Senate and reduce penalties for federal crack cocaine violations, according to an editorial in the Washington Post.
The mandatory prison terms adopted in the 1980s were “too tough and counterproductive.” For instance, possession of five grams of crack cocaine—the weight of two pennies—triggers a mandatory minimum sentence of five years; possession of 50 grams of crack calls for a 10-year mandatory minimum. Defendants arrested on powder cocaine charges, however, would face similar penalties only if they were caught with 100 times those amounts.
The Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 “brings fairness and sanity to this 20-year saga,” says the Post. The bill approved by the Senate last March eliminates a mandatory minimum sentence for simple possession. The crack-powder disparity would be reduced from the current 100:1 to roughly 18:1 but not eliminated.
The Post calls that “an important acknowledgment that crack, because of its addictive properties and its ability to quickly destroy the user’s health, is different from powder cocaine and deserves reasonably tougher penalties.”
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that shorter periods of incarceration would save the federal prison system some $42 million over five years.
To read the editorial, click here.
To read more about mandatory minimums and how harsh sentencing has driven up prison population in the United States, visit Justice Fellowship’s Drug Policy and Sentencing Reform resource page. |
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