Administration Seeks Change In Crack Sentences

The Obama administration joined a federal judge yesterday in urging Congress to end a racial disparity by equalizing prison sentences for dealing and using crack versus powdered cocaine. "Jails are loaded with people who look like me," U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton, who is black, told a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing.

Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer said the administration believes Congress' goal "should be to completely eliminate the disparity" between the two forms of cocaine. "A growing number of citizens view it as fundamentally unfair," Mr. Breuer testified.

It takes 100 times more powdered cocaine than crack cocaine to trigger the same harsh mandatory minimum sentences.

Sen. Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat who chairs the subcommittee, said more than 81% of those convicted for crack offenses in 2007 were African-American, although only about 25% of crack cocaine users are African Americans. Congress enacted the disparity during an epidemic of crack cocaine in the 1980s, but the liberal Democrat said lawmakers erred in assuming that violence would be greater among those using crack.

Mr. Breuer said the best way to deal with violence is to severely punish anyone who commits a violent offense, regardless of the drug involved.

Booker Rising response: I agree with the Obama administration. A long overdue action. Actually, I'd go a step further and legalize drugs for adults altogether. The government has no business telling consenting adults what they can or cannot do with their own bodies. The monies spent on the War On Drugs should be spent on locking up violent offenders.