Legislation reducing the disparity in cocaine sentencing was left out of a must-pass government funding bill, after the Justice Department took executive action last week to end the disparity that disproportionately affects Black defendants.
(Bloomberg) — Legislation reducing the disparity in cocaine sentencing was left out of a must-pass government funding bill, after the Justice Department took executive action last week to end the disparity that disproportionately affects Black defendants.
The legislation would have been a fallback in case the Justice Department order eliminating the 18-to-1 sentencing ratio that has existed for crack cocaine and powder cocaine offenders is ever reversed.
A bipartisan group of senators, including Democrats Dick Durbin and Cory Booker and Republican Chuck Grassley, had reached an agreement last week prior to the Justice Department’s announcement to reduce the disparity in federal sentencing for crack and powder cocaine offenses to 2.5-to-1 from 18-to-1.
Under the 18-to-1 ratio, anyone arrested with 28 grams of crack faced the same five-year mandatory prison sentence as a person found with 500 grams of powder cocaine.
Only 6% of crack cocaine trafficking offenders were White in 2021 compared to 77% who were Black, according to US Sentencing Commission data. However, White people are more likely to use cocaine in their lifetime than any other group, according to the 2020 National Survey of Drug Use and Health.
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