9.6: Sentencing Disparities-Crack v. Powder Cocaine

The following material examines sentencing disparities. The sentencing disparities around crack and powder cocaine, pointing out the differences and similarities between sentencing practices used by the federal government and the State of Pennsylvania. What factor(s) might account for the disparities observed in the federal sentencing guidelines?

Crack cocaine and powder cocaine remains cocaine, so why is such a disparity in sentencing and why such a disparate impact on minorities? Researchers will often examine the environmental impacts that create disillusion with current laws and debilitation of neighborhoods. Based on material presented thus far could it simply be that those with political and economic means (major political contributors) lobby sufficiently to get tough on crime laws that will support the Prison Industrial Complex?

As asserted by Tonry (1994) “First, conservative Republicans in national elections “played the race card” by using anticrime slogans (remember Willie Horton?) as a way to appeal to anti-Black sentiments of White voters. Second, conservative politicians of both parties promoted and voted for harsh crime control and drug policies that exacerbated existing racial disparities” (p. 475). The police are the first line of defense against crime and the effectiveness of the police are generally measured by reported crime data in comparison to arrest data; however there is no real measure of overall success (Skogan, 1999).

More recently researchers have been driven by observations and the impact of quality of life enforcement or an ecological approach, still there remains the perception that drug dealing and drug proliferation are in direct proportion to the debilitation of neighborhoods, which holds some truths but in reality is a part of the problem not the whole problem. Indicated by other English speaking countries, they have disproven assertions that harsher punishments significantly increase public safety (Tonry, 1994).

Although treatment and school based prevention programs have demonstrated greater promise to intercede the drug epidemic, America has remained with drug control policies that are a major cause of racial disparity in prisons (Tonry, 1994). Pennsylvania and New York are similarly situated based on personal experience of the author. However, Pennsylvania is the subject material used in this comparison.

In the U.S. today, more than 2.3 million adults are in American jails or prisons and as the Pew Center on the States has reported, that amounts to more than one in every 100 adults in an American jail or prison nationwide. While dangerous criminals should be behind bars, high incarceration rates cost taxpayers $50 billion per year (Pew Center, 2008). In Pennsylvania, over 87,000 adults are behind bars, meaning that one in every 111 Pennsylvania adults are in prison. Incarcerating one of these prisoners costs $98 per day or over $35,000 a year. State corrections costs alone in Pennsylvania exceed $1.8 billion annually (Pew Center, 2009).

Pennsylvania Corrections Data

Total Number of prisoners	Average Cost per state prisoner	Total annual state corrections costs in Pennsylvania
87,363	$35,000 per year	$1.8 billion

Tonry (1994) maintains that “There is no valid policy justification for the harsh drug and crime control polices of the “Reagan and Bush administrations…The justification is entirely political” (p.488). However it is argued that it is sometimes unfair to blame national Republican policy; political leaders have followed the will of the people; and to ignore that crime may be interracial and to ignore it would have an adverse impact on the Black victims. Non-the-less, crime control effectiveness should not be politically motivated and disregard flexible public objectives that can be measured and evaluated in order to alter course for the best interest of those we serve.

Finally, this chapter afforded pathways to examine decision making relative to influences on public policy. The War on Drugs is posed in a fashion that alludes that drugs are the target of the enforcement and not the offender. The insidious crack cocaine epidemic has been associated with crimes of violence, which is accurate, but it remains that cocaine is cocaine in any form. The inner-city populations have sensed disparate impacts resulting in increased incarceration of minorities and deterioration of neighborhood quality of life issues. In the end one can argue that the get tough on crime policy and increased prison populations were resultant of deviant behaviors rising to the level of crime. One can also conclude that the public policies devised by government may have been influenced by campaign contributions for the benefit of the Prison Industry Complex. At the end of the day, the reader must decipher and equate ethics and ethical or non-ethical influences portrayed as a benefit to society or for only the profiteering segment of society. What is of interest is where ethical decision making in day to day CJ practices become tainted by public policy involving influences that may or may not be ethically founded.