Key Terms
- “three strikes and you're out”: laws that require judges to adhere to mandatory minimum and sentencing guidelines for a third criminal offense.
Video
- Does the three strike law target minorities?
- Is this law causing more problems than it is solving?
Three strikes and your out: after 20 years is the law working?
Three strikes:
When is disparity discrimination?
- Three ways to determine when disparity is discrimination.
- First- compare similar cases.
- Second-no study can measure all factors.
- Third- “statistical studies may also try to cover up discrimination.
- Statistical studies are rarely useful.
- 1993-1995 twenty four states and the federal government adopted some form of this law.
- Three major problems with this law.
- First- “laws lead to draconian results”
- Second- can be over inclusive even if the result is to keep repeat offenders from harming society.
- Third- “increases cost of administering the criminal justice system”.
- Contributed to major growth in prison population.
- 1980 to 1994 national prison population grew 195.6%
- Black defendants have challenged the powder/crack disparity but every federal challenge has failed.
- In 1992 the U.S. Public Health Service estimated that 76% of illicit drug users were white, 14% black, and 8% Hispanic
- Blacks make up 35% of all drug arrests, 55% of drug convictions, and 74% of sentences for drug convictions
Race and Criminal Justice
- Crack cocaine vs. powder cocaine sentencing guidelines
- 90% of crack cocaine defendants are black
- 65% of crack cocaine users are white.
- 1992
- 92.6% of those convicted for crimes involving crack cocaine were black, and only 4.7% were white.
- Powder cocaine: 42.5% white, 20.7% black.
- Someone selling 5 grams of crack cocaine can receive the same sentence of someone selling 500 grams of powder cocaine.
- 1988 Minnesota
- 96.6% charged for possession of crack cocaine were black.
- 80% charges for possession of powder cocaine were white.
No Equal Justice:
The Color of Punishment