On April 10, 1995, the United States Sentencing Commission proposed amendments to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines reducing the penalty levels for offenses involving crack cocaine to the same levels applicable to powder cocaine offenses.
The amendments would have deleted the definition of "cocaine base" and in its place inserted a new definition stating, "'Cocaine,' for the purposes of this guideline, includes cocaine hydrochloride, cocaine base, and crack cocaine."
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The Sentencing Commission also voted to recommend that Congress equalize its mandatory sentencing statutes on cocaine.
Attorney General Janet Reno, speaking on behalf of the Department of Justice, opposed the reductions, and the Clinton Administration was able to get a bill introduced and passed in Congress rejecting the proposed changes.
On October 30, 1995, President Clinton signed into law the legislation disapproving the Sentencing Commission's proposed guideline amendment that would have equalized the penalties for crack and powder cocaine offenses. The legislation called for further study and a report by the Sentencing Commission on the appropriate penalty ratio between the two forms of cocaine.
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/12/12/215349/87On October 16, 1995, not coincidentally the day of the Million Man March, then President Clinton eloquently appealed for “fairness and equality” in a riveting address on race relations on a college campus, in which he stressed the need to “root out racism” from the criminal justice system.
Ironically, two days after that speech, the justice and equality that a million black men had marched to the steps of the Capitol to demand, was deferred. Congress voted against equalizing the quantities for the sentencing of crack and powder cocaine offenses.
This vote was suspect because lawmakers rejected the wisdom of their own bipartisan Sentencing Commission, which had meticulously researched and analyzed cocaine and federal sentencing policy over a two-year period. The Commission had come to the unanimous conclusion that the sentences for crack cocaine were too great and must be changed. Shamefully, out of over 500 recommendations submitted by the expert Commission since its inception, this was the first one Congress chose to ignore.
The ball was then in Mr. Clinton’s court. Congressional Black Caucus members pointedly appealed to the president to eradicate the disparity in cocaine sentencing. This was the first “test,” they declared, in the wake of the Million Man March, to prove he would “root out” unjust policies and practices. A coalition of civil rights groups at that time declared that eliminating this unjust law would have been “as easy as the stroke of a pen.” Unfortunately, Mr. Clinton failed to turn his eloquently delivered words on race relations into deeds, instead siding with the congressional majority and disregarding rationally based reform. And prisons continued to be built – and filled – throughout the 1990s.
http://www.blackcommentator.com/155/155_think_crack_congress_mmm.htmlClinton got a splash of publicity for his token release of four women and a man from prison -- a grand total of five out of America's 400,000 nonviolent drug convicts.
In June, the international group Human Rights Watch issued a major study finding that America's war on drugs has been waged overwhelmingly against black people.
The group said that five times as many white people as black people use drugs but black men are sent to state prisons at 13 times the rate of white men. Hispanics are also jailed in hugely disproportionate numbers.
http://www.commondreams.org/views/071800-105.htmUnder Clinton, the prison population shot up from 1.4 million to more than 2 million. Fearing being seen as soft on crime, Clinton did nothing to stop the racism of the so-called drug war. Clinton never fought seriously to eliminate the massive disparities in sentencing between crack and powder cocaine even though there was no medical evidence to support such disparities.
Clinton did nothing to stop local police departments from singling out nonviolent black nonusers of drugs, who are easier to snatch off street corners than off half-acre suburban lots. Even though African-Americans consume 13 percent of illegal drugs, roughly our share of the population, we made 74 percent of drug offenders sentenced sent to prison.
Under Clinton, the overall rate of African-Americans going to prison continued to soar. In the Reagan-Bush years, the rate grew from 1,156 prisoners per 100,000 black men to about 2,800 per 100,000. In the Clinton years, the rate grew to 3,620 prisoners per every 100,000 black men.
By the time the Clinton years were done, he had become such a sous chef in helping the Republicans cook the black goose, 14 percent of African-American men had lost the right to vote because of felony convictions. You could even argue that by going along with the recipes that Reagan and Bush set down, Clinton helped cooked his own vice president to a crisp.
http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0216-01.htmThanks, Clinton!
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