Senator Holly J. Mitchell has introduced Senate Bill 1010 to set the same penalties for sale of crack cocaine as now apply to the equally illegal sale of powder cocaine. Under current California law, convictions for intent to sell crack range from three to five years, but for powder cocaine they are only two to four years.
Since crack cocaine is cheaper than the powdered version, there are more crack convictions in low income and minority communities. Senator Mitchell’s bill would correct the unjustified disparity in sentencing, probation and asset forfeiture guidelines for low level crack and powder cocaine offenses. The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office estimates millions of dollars in savings for state and local governments if SB 1010 becomes law.
“Same crime, same punishment is a basic principle of law in our democratic society,” Senator Mitchell, a member of the Senate Public Safety Committee, said. “Yet more black and brown people serve longer sentences for trying to sell cocaine because the law unfairly punishes cheap drug traffic more severely than the white-collar version. Well, fair needs to be fair.”
Scientific reports, including a major study published in the “Journal of the American Medical Association,” demonstrate that the powder and crack forms of cocaine have nearly identical effects on the human body. Crack results from processing cocaine powder with an alkali, typically common baking soda. Gram for gram, there is less active drug in crack cocaine than in powder cocaine.
Data from a national survey indicates that crack cocaine use is approximately equal among all ethnic and racial groups. However, according to intake data from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, people of color account for more than 98 percent of persons sent to California prisons for possession of crack cocaine for sale. From 2005 to 2010, Blacks accounted for 77.4 percent of state prison commitments for crack possession for sale, Latinos accounted for 18.1 percent, while whites accounted for less than two percent of all those sent to California prisons in that five year period. Blacks make up 6.6 percent of the population in California; Latinos 38.2 percent, and whites 39.4 percent.
“Eliminating this disparity is a very important step towards fulfilling the promise of equal justice and ending the pattern of racial discrimination and over-incarceration that has targeted Latinos and all communities of color for many years now,” President of the William C. Velasquez Institute (WCVI) Antonio Gonzalez said.
“We’re trying to break the drug-related cycle of offenses, incarceration, subsequent unemployability and recidivism in urban communities,” Senator Mitchell, who chairs California’s Legislative Black Caucus, said. “The law isn’t supposed to be a pipeline that disproportionately sucks in the young and unemployed who are most vulnerable to illegal drug traffic.”
Sen. Mitchell’s bill is cosponsored by nearly a dozen civil rights and criminal justice reform organizations across the state; the Drug Policy Alliance, ACLU of California, A New Way of Life, California State Conference of the NAACP, Californians for Safety and Justice, California Public Defenders Association, California Attorneys for Criminal Justice, Ella Baker Center, Friends Committee on Legislation, National Council for La Raza, and the William C. Velasquez Institute.
