Gregory D.

Lee

Read Greg's bio and previous columns here

November 17, 2008

Liberals Win: Crack Dealer Sentences Slashed, So the Good Old Days Are Back

Earlier this year, the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Commission finally succumbed to years of immense political pressure from the NAACP, left-wing judges, the ACLU and other liberal groups to decriminalize the federal penalties for trafficking in crack cocaine. Now upwards of 20,000 crack dealers will be released back on inner-city streets within the next 12 months. They’ve all had years of a steady diet of “gangsta” rap music and made new drug contacts in prison, and now will not be intimidated by the new, puny prison sentences for selling gram amounts of crack cocaine.

Many argued that the mandated five-to-10-year sentence for selling five-grams of crack should not be the same as another defendant selling 500 grams (one-half kilogram) of powdered cocaine. For you metrically challenged, a gram is the amount contained in a single packet of Splenda.

Liberals long ago drew the race card when they first cited the fact that 80 percent of persons convicted for crack sales are black, insinuating the government only targeted blacks. If that were true, only blacks would be in prison for crack sales. As far as I am concerned, the sentence for selling five grams of powdered cocaine should be the same as the old crack penalties, and hardly any blacks are convicted for that.

Remember the mid-1980s “crack epidemic?” Remember all the violence and drug-related homicides that were occurring in inner city communities across the nation as organized traffickers fought for control of the new, emerging market? Remember “crack babies,” who were born mimicking the same symptoms of their drug-induced mothers?

Liberals would like you to believe the crack epidemic never happened. And if it did happen, it wasn’t as bad as the government predicted it would be. Tell that to the mother whose son was killed by a stray bullet from warring crack gangs, or to the grandmother whose grandchild she is raising suffers from a myriad of learning disabilities because her daughter, the child’s mother, used crack while she was pregnant.

The epidemic was not as bad as predicted because DEA task forces, which included state and local police agencies, aggressively attacked the problem. And those convicted were given substantial prison terms depriving them of their ability to continue the havoc.

The “let ‘em out” crowd would also like you to believe there is no difference between crack and powdered cocaine. That’s just not so. There was a good reason why crack cocaine penalties were much higher than selling an equal amount of powdered cocaine. Crack requires 100 times less weight than powdered cocaine to achieve an even greater high. When additive-free crack cocaine is smoked, the fumes from the pure drug create an intense euphoria superior to that of powdered cocaine, although for a shorter duration. The intense euphoria is what makes it so much more psychologically addicting.

It’s also much cheaper. Users only pay $10 to $20 for a pea size amount. Crack cocaine suddenly provided a cheap, intense high that attracted poor drug users and rich ones alike. By the way, if it makes liberals feel any better, most crack users are white and they come from all socioeconomic backgrounds.

Well, now that the liberals have finally prevailed, get ready for a repeat of those dark days, which is what prompted Congress to enact longer sentences in the first place.

Haven’t we learned anything about what works, and more importantly, what doesn’t work to lower the crime rate? Sentencing guidelines coupled with mandatory minimum sentences worked well, perhaps too well, sending liberals in a tizzy. Sentencing drug dealers to lengthy prison sentences prevents them from further selling poison to our children and committing other crimes. Having fewer drug dealers means a significant decline in the overall crime rate, especially homicides and other crimes of violence.

Putting bad guys in jail and leaving them there for substantial periods of time lowers the crime rate every time it’s tried. Why is that so hard for liberals to understand?

Gregory D. Lee is a retired DEA Supervisory Special Agent and is the author of three criminal justice textbooks. He can be reached through is website: www.gregorydlee.com.

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