Civil Rights Community Applauds Introduction of Bill to Eliminate Crack/Powder Cocaine Sentencing Disparity

“Today, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights commends Sen. Dick Durbin, D. Ill., for introducing the Fair Sentencing Act of 2009, which would eliminate the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine.  This modest bill will fix a grave injustice in our nation’s criminal justice system, one that has wreaked havoc on African-American and low-income communities around the country.

Under current law, defendants convicted for possessing just five grams of crack cocaine – less than the weight of two sugar packets – are subject to a five-year mandatory minimum sentence.  Yet, a defendant selling powder cocaine has to be caught selling 100 times as much to get the same sentence.

The law was designed to punish big-time drug traffickers. Instead, more than 60 percent of those convicted of federal crack crimes have been street-level dealers, mostly African-American and low-income.

Rather than solve our nation’s drug trafficking problem, current law has created new problems, wasting valuable federal resources and diminishing respect for law enforcement in minority and low-income communities.

We urge Congress to pass this bill quickly and restore basic fairness to our nation’s drug laws.”