African American and Hispanic males are over-represented in the prison population. They are not only stopped and arrested more often, they are also more frequently convicted of the crimes that come with long mandatory sentences. These sentences have their beginnings in the 1980s, when the "war on drugs" included increased and mandatory terms for crimes involving drugs. California and many other states have "three strikes" laws, requiring courts to hand down mandatory sentences for people who have been convicted three times. These statutes mean that some people who have committed minor crimes are serving more time than violent offenders.
Decision Points
Part of the racial imbalance in prisons is undoubtedly due to the choices made by people involved in the criminal justice process: what crimes to focus on, whether to arrest or release with a warning, whether and how to prosecute, whether to convict, whether to impose a prison sentence or probation, where to place a prisoner, whether to release on parole, whether to revoke parole for violations of the rules. In some jurisdictions, the discretion of the decision-makers is curtailed at key points-such as where mandatory sentences are required for defendants convicted of certain crimes. But most of the decisions are open to the interpretation of a department or even of an individual officer or prosecutor. Some choices are made on a neutral basis but have a discriminatory impact; others may be racially motivated. And almost all of these decision points disadvantage a person from a poor, especially urban, background.
Sentencing analyst Marc Mauer notes that, for example, "In 2003, black men were twelve times more likely to be sent to prison for a drug offense than white men," even though "whites and African Americans use and sell drugs at roughly the same rates." Why? "Police find drugs where they look for them," Mauer writes. "Inner city, open-air markets are easier to bust than those that operate out of suburban basements, and numerous studies show that minorities are stopped by police more often than whites."
Laws about drugs in school zones have a similar effect. In the suburbs or a small town, the area around a school might occupy a relatively small footprint relative to the whole community. In an urban area, schools are much closer together and school zones overlap densely populated residential areas. As a result, Mauer writes, 96 percent of the people incarcerated under school zone laws in New Jersey in 2005 were African American or Hispanic.
Longer Sentences Don't Work
Are the longer, mandatory sentences effective in reducing drug use and associated criminal activity? Apparently not. A 1997 Rand Corporation report found that mandatory minimum sentences were the least cost-effective model for resolving the related problems of drugs and crime. Standard, shorter sentences were more cost effective when focused on dealers, and the most cost effective response was treatment of heavy users. Treatment programs vary, of course, in expense and effectiveness. The experience of a comprehensive alternative treatment programs such as the Drug Treatment Alternative to Prison Program in New York, which involves both residential and "ambulatory" services, suggests that even a relatively intensive treatment program can be less expensive than prison and more effective at preventing a return to drug use or sales.
See our reference and notes page for more on where we got our data from.
No comments:
Post a Comment