JUSTICE DEPARTMENT RELEASES REPORT
ANALYZING CRACK AND POWDER COCAINE PENALTIES

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Justice Department's Office of Legal Policy today released an analysis of prison sentences for federal cocaine offenses. The report concludes that, for comparable quantities of cocaine, the differential between prison sentences for crack traffickers and powder traffickers is much smaller than commonly believed.

"The public debate over the crack-powder disparity has proceeded on bad facts and misconceptions. If this policy debate is to have any real meaning, it must be premised on correct facts," said Viet D. Dinh, Assistant Attorney General for Legal Policy.

Public debate over sentences for federal cocaine offenses has focused on the 100 to1 differential in the amounts of powder and crack cocaine that trigger the 5- and 10-year mandatory minimum sentences. This differential is commonly distorted to imply that sentences for crack cocaine are vastly greater than sentences for powder cocaine. A closer examination of the federal penalty structure for cocaine offenses reveals that the often-cited 100 to1 differential is misleading. The Office of Legal Policy's analysis, based on actual sentences imposed for 46,413 crack and powder defendants between 1996-2000, demonstrates that:

• Crack defendants convicted of trafficking in less than 25 grams of cocaine received an average sentence that is 4.8 times longer than the sentence received by a defendant convicted of trafficking the comparable quantity of powder. The ratio between average crack and powder sentences for defendants convicted of trafficking in between 15 and 49.9 kilograms of cocaine is 2.4 to 1.
• For defendants who possessed weapons, the ratio between average crack and powder sentences for lower amounts of cocaine is 2.9 to 1. For the highest amounts of cocaine, the ratio is 1.6 to1.
• For defendants with the highest criminal history levels, the average sentence for crack defendants ranged from 1.6 to 1.3 times longer (depending on the amount of cocaine) than the average sentence for defendants convicted of trafficking like quantities of powder.
• For defendants with the lowest criminal histories convicted of trafficking the lower quantities of cocaine, the average crack sentence is 8.3 times greater than the average powder sentence -- 1,637 out of 22,896 (or 7 percent) of crack defendants examined in this study fall into this category. However, for offenders convicted of trafficking in higher amounts of cocaine, the ratio of average crack to powder sentences is 2 to 1.

Crack cocaine is a dangerous drug that has a devastating effect on its victims. For example, in one recent study, 86.7 percent of women surveyed were not involved in prostitution in the year before starting crack use; fully one-third became involved in prostitution in the year after they began use. Women who were already involved in prostitution dramatically increased their involvement, with rates nearly four times higher than before beginning crack use.

Another recent study found that women who used crack cocaine had much higher than average rates of victimization than women who did not. Among an Ohio sample of 171 adult female crack users, 62 percent had been physically attacked since the onset of crack use. Rape was reported by 32 percent of the women since they began using crack, and among these, 83 percent reported being high on crack when the rape occurred, as were an estimated 57 percent of the perpetrators.

These and many other statistics and studies tell the story of the devastation that cocaine, and crack cocaine specifically, bring to the nation – especially its minority communities. Lowering crack penalties would simply send the wrong message – that we care more about crack dealers then we do about the people and the communities victimized by crack.

Further, lowering crack penalties is inconsistent with a rejuvenated national fight against illegal drug use. The recently released Attorney General's drug enforcement strategy has two essential elements: modifying individual behavior to discourage and reduce drug use and addiction, and disrupting the market for illegal drugs. Lowering penalties for trafficking crack cocaine would be inconsistent with both objectives.

In his testimony today before the U.S. Sentencing Commission, Deputy Attorney General Larry D. Thompson expressed the Department's view that the current federal sentencing policy and guidelines for crack cocaine offenses are proper, and that it would be more appropriate to address the differential between crack and powder cocaine by recommending that penalties for powder cocaine be increased. The Department would oppose any effort by the Commission to issue guidelines that do not adhere to the congressionally enacted statutes that define and prescribe penalties for federal cocaine offenses.

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