Darealprisonart

The Psychotropication of the American Prisoner

How much time is too much? In the late 80s the U.S. Congress created a law recognizing crack cocaine, a derivative of powder cocaine, to carry a federal sentence 100 times the weight of its powder cocaine derivative. The Controlled Substances Act established a minimum mandatory sentence of five years for a first-time trafficking offense involving over five grams of crack, as opposed to 500 grams of powder cocaine. In other words, it enacted a criminal liability scheme that $125 of street value crack cocaine, is the moral and criminal equivalent of $12,500 of street value powder cocaine. A low bar entry of $125 to run afoul of federal law is targeting consumers, whereas a $12,500 price tag is targeting dealers. This criminal liability scheme created racial disparity in sentencing, as it was known at the time of its enactment, African Americans were the consumers of crack, while White Americans were the consumers of powder. The law imposed the same ratio for larger amounts: a minimum sentence of 10 years for amounts of crack over 50 grams ($12,500), versus 5 kilograms of cocaine ($125,000).