[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 120 (Thursday, September 11, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Page S9198]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. ALLARD:
  S. 1162. A bill to amend the Controlled Substances Act and the 
Controlled Substances Import and Export Act with respect to penalties 
for powder cocaine and crack offenses; to the Committee on the 
Judiciary.


       the powder-crack cocaine penalty equalization act of 1997

  Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, today I rise to address one of the most 
longstanding and racially sensitive disputes in the criminal justice 
system. I am introducing legislation to equalize the criminal penalties 
for offenses involving crack and powder cocaine.
  Under current law, a seller of 5 grams of crack cocaine receives the 
same mandatory 5-year prison term as a seller of 500 grams of powder 
cocaine.
  That disparity between penalties has been scrutinized by the U.S. 
Sentencing Commission, Congress, and the Clinton administration for the 
last several years. Although many solutions have called for narrowing 
the gap in penalties, these recommendations don't go far enough. 
Instead of equalizing the penalties, they only narrow the disparity in 
sentencing for powder versus crack cocaine by altering the ratio from 5 
to 1 instead of the current 100 to 1.
  Additional recommendations have called for lessening the penalty for 
crack dealers, bringing it closer to the lax penalties applied to 
powder offenders.
  My legislation rejects the hollow solution of lowering the penalty 
for crack to make it equal to powder cocaine penalties. The fact is 
that 90 percent of those convicted of dealing crack are African-
Americans, while the majority of powder cocaine offenders are white.
  Raising the powder cocaine penalties to that of crack will help 
alleviate the perception of unfairness and racial bias in sentencing. 
But reducing the penalties for crack cocaine would only increase 
violent crime and harm those which the law is seeking to help.
  Statistics remind us that cocaine addiction continues to plague our 
society. According to the Partnership for a Drug Free America, 1 out of 
every 10 babies born in the United States is born addicted to drugs, 
and most are addicted to crack cocaine. Crime exploded between 1985 and 
1990, the years crack was introduced. In fact, violent crime went up 37 
percent in 1990 and aggravated assaults increased 43 percent. Partly 
because of crack cocaine, more teens in this country now die of gunshot 
wounds than all natural causes combined. Lowering sentences on crack 
cocaine would be devastating to the progress we have made in fighting 
the drug war.
  During the 1980's, Congress legislated steep consequences for crack 
cocaine.
  The crack epidemic spread across our Nation--and it warranted several 
drastic legal reforms. We saw the destruction wrought on entire 
communities by this cheap and highly addictive form of cocaine and 
realized that tough penalties were needed to restrict its availability.
  These tougher sentences were needed, but the problem we are seeing 
today is that powder cocaine sentences were set before the crack 
epidemic began and do not reflect the influence powder has had on crime 
and drug trafficking.
  This bill provides a twofold solution: It corrects the inequality in 
penalties which has contributed to the perceived race bias in 
sentencing; while at the same time stiffening the penalty for powder 
cocaine offenses, which are currently far too lenient.
  In light of the numerous proposals introduced to correct this 
problem, I encourage my colleagues to contemplate the alternatives and 
consider how justice is served in this matter. Maintaining the current 
ratio is allowing a wrongful disparity in penalties to continue. 
Congress must act now to correct this injustice.
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