Lobotomy
28th August 2011, 19:19
So this is old news, go ahead and delete it if it's already been discussed, but I decided to post it in discrimination because as I'm sure we all know, the War on Drugs has historically been more like a war on black people, particularly when it comes to the laws on crack cocaine. Obviously we should be demanding an end to the War on Drugs as a whole but this is still a step in the right direction.
According to U.S. Sentencing Commission figures, no class of drug is as racially skewed as crack in terms of numbers of offenses. According to the commission, 79 percent of 5,669 sentenced crack offenders in 2009 were black, versus 10 percent who were white and 10 percent who were Hispanic. The figures for the 6,020 powder cocaine cases are far less skewed: 17 percent of these offenders were white, 28 percent were black, and 53 percent were Hispanic. Combined with a 115-month average imprisonment for crack offenses versus an average of 87 months for cocaine offenses, this makes for more African-Americans spending more time in the prison system.
Data Show Racial Disparity in Crack Sentencing (http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2010/08/03/data-show-racial-disparity-in-crack-sentencing)
According to U.S. Sentencing Commission figures, no class of drug is as racially skewed as crack in terms of numbers of offenses. According to the commission, 79 percent of 5,669 sentenced crack offenders in 2009 were black, versus 10 percent who were white and 10 percent who were Hispanic. The figures for the 6,020 powder cocaine cases are far less skewed: 17 percent of these offenders were white, 28 percent were black, and 53 percent were Hispanic. Combined with a 115-month average imprisonment for crack offenses versus an average of 87 months for cocaine offenses, this makes for more African-Americans spending more time in the prison system.
Data Show Racial Disparity in Crack Sentencing (http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2010/08/03/data-show-racial-disparity-in-crack-sentencing)