Back to crack sentencing
I already wrote about U.S. Sentencing Commission’s recommendation to reduce the disparity between cocaine powder and crack-cocaine minimum sentencing schemas. The Commission recommends lighter minimum sentences for crack - since, under the current statute, trafficking in crack-cocaine will result in substantially greater minimum sentence than trafficking in the equivalent amount of coke powder. The idea is that the offenders will now be punished equally for trafficking in equal amounts of the same substance.
Douglas A. Berman, a professor of law at the Ohio State University, thinks that it is an important development, legally speaking. Alex Coolman of the Drug Law Blog has a less legalese, albeit a more common-sense approach to the issue, pointing out that the proposed changes would have a virtually cosmetic impact on “roughly 70% of crack sentences will be reduced, on average, from just over 10 years to just under 9 years” (He actually got the numbers from a Professor Berman blog post).
Obviously, there are many ways to look at this development. My brain here is with Professor Berman, while my heart sides with Alex Coolman. The problem here is not disparate sentences meted out to crack and coke powder dealers, but the harsh excessiveness of the punitive solution itself. The Sentencing Commission has to operate within the framework of the punitive model supplied to us by Congress. Obviously, as Alex mentions in plain-speak, striving for equitable results in a system the facets of which are grossly inequitable to begin with won’t result in a profound change for the better. But, I suppose, a sensible thing at the moment would be abandoning a quest for fairer across-the-board general paradigms and working to make the existing system fairer one positive step at a time. Think about it: the Sentencing Commission could have eliminated the sentencing disparity by raising the penalties for cocaine powder trafficking, instead of lowering the penalties for crack.
admin :: May.18.2007 :: Cocaine and Crack, Rants, Sentencing and Penalties :: No Comments »