Thinking About Obama's Jena Speech
Consider the following passage, excerpted by Andrew Sullivan:
If you’re convicted of a crime involving drugs, of course you should be punished. But let’s not make the punishment for crack cocaine that much more severe than the punishment for powder cocaine when the real difference is where the people are using them or who is using them. Republicans have said they think that’s wrong, Democrats think that’s wrong and yet it’s been approved by Republican and Democratic presidents because no one has been willing to brave the politics and make it right. But I will, when I am President of the United States of America.
But this is a canard. To suggest that “the real difference is where the people are using them or who is using them” is flatly absurd. Butch Jackson says it best.
Many years ago, Butch Jackson, the Washington D.C. based master percussionist, offered a very intriguing opinion on the ongoing crack v. powder cocaine disparity in sentencing debate. According to Jackson, who once smacked skins in rhythm for Nina Simone and Marvin Gaye, there is no debate: crack cocaine is far more destructive than powder cocaine. Thus, according to Jackson, the penalty should be much more severe for possession of crack. Of course Jackson had the unfortunate credentials to speak on the matter: he had abused both crack and powder at one time in his life.
Was it racist hysteria that led to the disparity? No. Part of it was the crack epidemic, one of the central events in the history of the prison-industrial complex. The other part was a powerful emotional reaction to the tragic death of Len Bias.
Twenty years ago University of Maryland basketball star Len Bias died of a drug overdose just hours after being selected second in the NBA draft by the Boston Celtics. His death sparked a national whirlwind of media attention and public scrutiny largely focused on the drug, crack cocaine, that was suspected of killing him.
I think our approach to criminal justice is insane and extremely counterproductive. It sharply exacerbates poverty and it may well increase crime. But to suggest that the sentencing disparity is racist suggests a level of unseriousness. The most egregious racism in the criminal justice system is in sentencing. In 2003, Ed Glaeser and Bruce Sacerdote found the following:
Among vehicular homicides, drivers who kill women get 59 percent longer sentences. Drivers who kill blacks get 60 percent shorter sentences.
Juries literally value black lives less than nonblack lives, which suggests that criminals who kill blacks actually receive shorter sentences than they’d likely get if they killed whites in similar circumstances.
Think about this carefully and you’ll find that this actually upends the conventional narrative concerning the racism of the criminal justice system.
The real problem is that we throw too many basically nonviolent people in jail. So many, in fact, that we’re destroying families and communities. That’s something we should all be able to agree on. While I actually agree that the sentencing disparity should be narrowed, I find the racism charge counterproductive in the extreme. If Obama is the antidote to polarization, why is he so quick to grasp at this particular polarizing, underinformed notion?
Except that the damage done by crack is not worse than that by cocaine. (And I notice you’ve provided no evidence to suggest otherwise.) If you’re simply talking about the effects of physical dependency on the body, there is no compelling evidence whatsoever that crack is more damaging. If you are saying that the larger effects to society are more damaging, I would argue that they are simply more visible for crack, as the rich users of cocaine have the ability to hide the damage the drug is doing in a way crack users do not. If you’re talking about the criminal aspect of the importation and trafficking of crack, it’s just nonsensical, as any portion of crack spends 95% of its existence as powder cocaine.
Also, Bias is widely known to have died from an overdose of powder cocaine, which was confirmed by his autopsy, which is a matter of public record. Pretty big mistake there.
— Freddie · Oct 31, 04:36 AM · #
Uh, I believe that confirms rather than upends the conventional narrative concerning racism in the criminal justice system.
— talboito · Oct 31, 07:41 AM · #
<i>But to suggest that the sentencing disparity is racist suggests a level of unseriousness.</i>
Baloney. A crude argument that “white politicians intentionally chose to target a black drug for higher punishment, and there is no justification for treating crack any different from powder” is, indeed, unserious. But even granting that there may be some justification for treating crack more harshly, the 100:1 ratio, and its persistence years and years after there was widespread agreement that it was far too excessive, is absolutey influenced by racism. It’s very hard (impossible) to explain the persistence of 100:1 without noting that the burden falls primarily on poor black men who politicians care about much less than, say, middle-class white powder cocaine users.
— JWR · Oct 31, 01:58 PM · #
Not terribly difficult, and hardly impossible. All you have to do is change your perspective on the “burdens” of current law from the criminals to the victims. All the arguments that drug use is a victimless crime disguise the truth that there are real victims. (Not from casual use, perhaps, but that’s not what’s at issue here.) Among middle-class white powdered cocaine users, the victimization is generally private and personal: families are destroyed, jobs and homes lost, individuals bankrupted. Sad and tragic, but limited in scope. Crack cocaine, on the other hand, destroys neighborhoods. Some of us say that’s 100 times more damaging. YMMV, of course.
— Kelly · Oct 31, 03:49 PM · #