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November 12, 2007
Marc Mauer Testimony on Crack Cocaine Retroactive Sentence Reductions at the U. S. Sentencing Commission
Nov 13, 2007 Marc Mauer testimony before the U.S. Sentencing Commission to urge the Commission to make retroactive its recent guideline amendment on crack cocaine offenses. If the Commission does so, an estimated 19,500 persons in prison will be eligible for a sentence reduction averaging more than two years.
Including:
Public Safety - Many of the persons who will benefit from retroactivity will have served many years in prison, far longer on average than persons convicted of powder cocaine offenses. They are thus likely to be "aging out" of crime and can benefit from reentry programming in the federal prison system.
Consistency in Sentencing - The Commission has called for crack cocaine sentencing reform since 1995, and therefore it is only proper to apply the amendment to persons in prison, the vast majority of whom have been sentenced since that time.
Racial Disparity - Since previous drug amendments which were more likely to benefit whites and Hispanics were made retroactive, there would be serious concerns about bias in the system if the crack amendment is not made retroactive. An estimated 85% of the persons who would benefit from such a policy are African American.
Cost Issues - While there would be some additional court and corrections costs associated with applying the amendment retroactively, these would be more than offset by the long-term reduction in incarceration that would occur.
Full testimony @
http://sentencingproject.org/Admin/Documents/publications/dp_ussctestimony.pdf
Posted by lois at November 12, 2007 07:53 PM