Mandatory Minimum Sentencing

By Cedric Dean
Did you know since the enactment of mandatory minimum sentencing for drug users, the Federal Bureau of Prisons budget increased from $220 million in 1986 to $5.4 billion in 2008.

In the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, Congress structured antidrug penalties to encourage the Department of Justice to concentrate it’s enforcement effort against high-level and major-level drug traffickers, and provided new, long mandatory minimum sentences for such offenders, correctly recognizing the Federal role in the combined Federal – State drug enforcement effort.

Between 1994 and 2003, the standard time served by Blacks for a drug charge expanded by 62%, matched with a 1796 expansion among White drug offenders. Majority of this gap is ascribed to the harsh penalties associated with crack cocaine.

Blacks, ordinarily, now serve just about as much time in Federal Prison for a drug charge (58.7 months as Whites do for a violent act (61.7 months).

Only 12.8% of powder cocaine prosecutions and 8.4% of crack cocaine prosecutions were waged against high-level traffickers, according to the Report to Congress: Cocaine and Federal Sentencing Policy, issued May, 2007 by the United States Sentencing Commission. Also, 81.8% and 8,490 of Federal crack cocaine convictions were imposed on Blacks and Hispanics, respectively.

Blacks are only 12% of the U.S. Population and 14% of drug users, but 30% of all Federal drug convictions.

Congresswoman Maxine Waters wants the Department of Justice to use Federal resources on major drug offenders (only). Support her bill: H.R. 1466 which allows the States to adequately prosecute and punish low-level and mid-level drug offenders or treat them as appropriate