Connecticut Weighs Cocaine Sentencing Policy

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In Connecticut, people convicted of possessing about $50 worth of crack cocaine currently face a mandatory minimum of five years in prison. But it takes possession of about $3,000 worth of powder cocaine to trigger the same sentence. Similar sentencing gaps exist in other states and at the federal level, and reformers argue the disparity is unfair to African-Americans and Latinos. From member station WNPR in Hartford, Av Harris reports.

(Soundbite of meeting)

AV HARRIS reporting:

On a warm spring evening Dr. Dorian Grey Parker leads a weekly meeting at Gloria House(ph). It's a home for recovering drug users in the Frog Hollow section of Hartford.

Dr. DORIAN GREY PARKER (Gloria House): I want to have the house ready by July 31st.

Unidentified Man: Ready for what?

Dr. GREY PARKER: A cookout.

Unidentified Man: Oh, OK.

Dr. GREY PARKER: We've got our lives to live, you know. We've got a neighborhood watching.

HARRIS: Gloria House is a former crack house. Its windows used to be boarded up. Resident Dard McCoy(ph), who's 46, says he spent a total of seven years in prison for crack possession.

Mr. DARD McCOY: Back in '98 I got arrested for selling a dime of cocaine, $10 worth crack, to take care of my habit. I mean, that's like a felony. Most jobs that you apply for after you get out of jail and stuff, they shut the door in your face.

HARRIS: Drug policy reformers say cases like McCoy's are all too common in the black community. Stiff sentencing laws for crack possession land users in prison for long terms often for carrying relatively small amounts of the drug. Crack is cheaper to obtain and provides a quicker high than powder cocaine. Its users tend to be poorer, African-American and Latino. Those who use powder cocaine are predominantly white and from the suburbs. Clifford Thornton, the president of the Hartford-based group Efficacy, says the disparity in drug sentencing is racially biased.

Mr. CLIFFORD THORNTON (President, Efficacy): There are eight times as many whites that use cocaine as blacks. If we, in fact, arrested and incarcerated per illegal drug use, there would literally be armed insurrection in the streets because the white middle class would not put up with the wholesale incarceration of their children.

HARRIS: According to federal statistics, 9 percent of all black men between the ages of 19 and 35 are in prison, and a majority of them are doing time for low-level drug offenses. But law enforcement authorities throughout the country support harsher sentences for crack as a deterrent.

Mr. BILL JOHNSON (National Association of Police Organizations): We would have cases where people would trade their babies for a rock or two of cocaine.

HARRIS: Bill Johnson is a former policeman and drug prosecutor who now runs the National Association of Police Organizations. He says crack is clearly more powerful than powder cocaine, and it makes junkies feel invincible.

Mr. JOHNSON: The extraordinary level of violence, both to oneself and the violence that was directed outwards toward other people and towards the community, was taken to a whole new level by people under the influence of this particular substance.

HARRIS: Several scientific studies dispute the claim that crack causes more violence or is more addictive. In 2002, the federal Sentencing Commission concluded that mandatory minimums have done little to deter crack use. Eric Sterling, the president of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation, says that's because the tough crack laws don't get to the real problem.

Mr. ERIC STERLING (President, Criminal Justice Policy Foundation): The average sentence to a street-level crack dealer is greater than the average sentence to someone who's importing powder cocaine from Colombia. Only about 7 percent of all the federal cocaine cases are against high-level traffickers.

HARRIS: Michael Brown(ph) has done time for crack possession. Brown says the harsh penalty was a good deterrent for him because it scared him straight. But he says there are many others for whom the crack penalties are not stiff enough.

Mr. MICHAEL BROWN: I've seen attitudes in individuals that have come out of jail--and I mean doing big time, 10, 15 years--and they're out today, and in a minute they have no regret on cracking somebody upside the noggin and taking a life. So people like that I do think should perhaps be locked up for the rest of their lives, you know?

HARRIS: But even supporters of tougher crack penalties readily admit that incarceration is not the only answer. Many states have recently rolled back mandatory minimum drug sentences and begun providing treatment and parole to non-violent offenders. Reformers in Connecticut are hoping to convince Governor Jodi Rell to do the same. For NPR News, I'm Av Harris in Hartford.

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