"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...
[ View Full Essay]