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03-08-08 AlterNet-Mukasey's Racist Threats On Changing Crack
03-08-08 AlterNet-Mukasey's Racist Threats On Changing Crack
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Look out: Michael Mukasey wants you to know that you're less safe today than you
were last week -- and it's got nothing to do with FISA.
The attorney general has been issuing dire warnings for months about the horrible
things to befall society if Congress allows a change in federal sentencing guidelines
that could lead to the early release of some 20,000 prisoners convicted for crack
cocaine offenses. The sentencing revision was officially decided upon by the U.S.
Sentencing Commission on Nov. 1; on Dec. 11 it voted to make the decision
retrocative, meaning that federal prisoners already serving draconian sentences for
crack cocaine convictions could also catch a break. The first wave of prisoners
became eligible for release on Monday, March 3 -- but not before Mukasey made it
his mission to stop it.
The attorney general -- who some would argue might have better things to do -- went
before Congress multiple times to try to derail the measure, employing classic White
House-style fear-mongering. "Unless Congress acts by the March 3rd deadline," he
warned members of the House Judiciary Committee in February, "nearly 1,600
convicted crack dealers, many of them violent gang members, will be eligible for
immediate release into communities nationwide." Channeling Dick Cheney, he said,
"Many of these offenders are among the most serious and violent offenders in the
federal system, and their early release at a time when violent crime is rising in some
communities will produce tragic, but predictable results."
In fact, the vast majority of people locked up on federal crack cocaine charges are
nonviolent offenders -- with one recent analysis by the Sentencing Commission
showing the number close to 90 percent.
Regardless, Congress wasn't convinced by Mukasey's theatrics and let the revision
stand. March 3 came and went. In the few days since the new sentencing guideline
took effect, hundreds of court orders have flooded the Federal Bureau of Prisons. It is
unclear how many prisoners have been freed.
Are you reeling from the sudden crime wave?
Laid bare, Mukasey's mission was not only dishonest, it was racist. If there was ever a
baldly discriminatory criminal justice policy -- one that has long attracted bipartisan
criticism -- it's the sentencing disparity between powder and crack cocaine offenses.
First codified in 1986, when Ronald Reagan signed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act, the law
imposed five-year minimum sentences on anyone found guilty of distributing five
grams (about two sugar packs' worth) of crack cocaine. Yet it took 100 times that
amount -- 500 grams -- of powder cocaine to get the same sentence.
Fueled by the fear of the crack epidemic, the guiding rationale was that crack
cocaine was more addictive -- but years' worth of study have demonstrated this to be
a myth. The real difference, aside from street price (crack is cheaper to produce and
purchase) lies in the populations who use crack versus powder cocaine. The former is
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