by Patrice Gaines
NNPA News Service

This the final segment of “The Cost of Incarceration”, an eight-part series written by former Washington Post reporter Patrice Gaines, author and co-founder of The Brown Angel Center, a program in Charlotte, N.C., that helps formerly incarcerated women become financially independent.

For 18 years Nkechi Taifa, senior policy analyst at OSI-Washington, D.C., worked on the elimination of sentencing disparity between crack and powdered cocaine.

Finally, On August 3rd, President Barack Obama signed into law the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, which reduced the 100-to-1 ratio between crack and powder cocaine to a fairer 18-to-1 ratio and repealed a mandatory minimum sentence for simple possession of crack.

“Never in my wildest dreams did I think it would take as long to get what is a limited victory,” said Taifa. “For the first time in 40 years we were able to achieve the complete elimination of a mandatory minimum sentence.

“We call it bitter sweet because what’s fair would be one to one (or the same sentencing for crack as powdered cocaine). But it’s sweet because we were able to effectuate a change and get bi-partisan support.”

After decades of unrelenting, harsh sentencing laws, finally some justice reform triumphs hint at the possibility of change in the future. Taifa said the crack laws reform included a coalition of “strange bedfellows – law enforcement, judges, prosecutors and the religious right.”

The movement for reform has been picking up speed partially because of a bad economy, said Julie Stewart, President, Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM). “The economics are helping states re-address their sentencing policies and ask: Are we putting the right people in prison? Or who can we get out because too many people are there?”

Now advocates want the new crack law made retroactive. As it stands, people who committed their crimes prior to August 2nd are serving sentences based on the old 100-to-1 disparity.

Meanwhile, this year the U.S. Supreme Court abolished life imprisonment without parole sentences for juveniles who commit crimes short of homicide. The justices said defendants currently serving such terms should be given a “meaningful opportunity to obtain release based on demonstrated maturity and rehabilitation.”

Yet according to the Web site of Equal Justice Initiative (EJI): “young children continue to be sentenced to die in prison with very little scrutiny or review.”

“The Court has banded life without parole for children in most crimes but it has not addressed life without parole for homicide,” said Bryan Stevenson, executive director of EJI.

Stevenson also notes, “There is the racial disparity. We did a study of kids, ages 13 to 14, in prison and found 80 percent were kids of color, overwhelmingly African-American and Latino.”

If the U.S. is to lose its label as the country with the highest incarceration rate, it may have to redefine justice and the process by which it is reached. There are already some programs that are alternatives to incarceration, but not nearly enough of them, according to justice reform advocates. Drug courts, which began in 1989, provide community-based treatment, rehabilitation and supervision for non-violent, felon drug defendants instead of the tradition option of imprisonment. There are now over 2,000 such programs and they have proven to reduce recidivism and crime.

Shadd Maruda, an American who is a professor at Queen’s University Belfast Law School, has watched “restorative justice” become a more accepted way of handling disputes, even criminal ones – in Northern Ireland – while in the U.S. the concept is not well-known. Instead of emphasizing punishment, Restorative Justice (RJ) emphasizes repairing the harm caused by crime. Victims, offenders and community members meet to decide how to do that. There are restorative programs in the U.S. but they are generally not for offenders who have committed serious crimes.

“The most interesting thing about restorative justice in Northern Ireland is groups are very grass roots and led by ex-prisoners once considered terrorists on each side,” said Maruda. “Both Catholics and Protestants are behind it and have embraced restorative justice… If a citizen goes to a restorative justice program, the program has to go to police, but police can say yes, this is something you can do and the person (charged) can avoid a record.”

In Ireland, said Maruda, “This way of handling disputes is in the paper every day and you can ask the cab driver what he thinks of restorative justice and he has an opinion.”

Already, the U.S. has created a large population of formerly incarcerated people who are disproportionately black and who have a difficult time re-entering the community.

At 24, William Smith had a record that included possession of marijuana, assault and larceny, though he had never been to prison. He needed a skill and received one through the Urban League of Central Carolinas’ Summer Youth Empowerment Program. Now he is married and raising his son, William Jr. (Photo courtesy of NNPA News Service)

At 24, William Smith had a record that included possession of marijuana, assault and larceny, though he had never been to prison.

“I always had a good head on my shoulders but a poor, young man in the black community with a record is not given many options,” he said.

He needed a skill and received one through the Urban League of Central Carolinas’ Summer Youth Empowerment Program. He trained to become a certified fibrotic and cable premise technician. Today, he has a job and has married his girlfriend so they could raise their son together.

“Having my son helped me change and the Urban League gave me that extra push,” said Smith.

Patrick C. Graham, president and CEO of the Urban League of Central Carolinas, has seen the difference made by the youth program. “What is ironic is our society fears these young people but on the flip side, these young people fear society.

“So how do you break down that fear? With young people, you give them life skills. With the community, we have to do more advocacy and public policy initiatives that make it easier for (these youths) to assimilate. It’s not a one-way street,” said Graham. “While it is important to teach them how to swim, we have to make the water conducive for them to swim.”

Regardless of the recent successes, justice reform advocates see plenty of challenges ahead of them.

Stevenson of Equal Justice Initiative sees hopelessness among black children who believe incarceration is unavoidable.

“That kind of expectation presents a new challenge to African Americans in this country,” he said. “What’s really interesting is the new phenomenan of thousands of kids and family members spending more and more time in prisons visiting dad or mom or brother or sister and sons.”

Stevenson said communities have to create the political support for reform. “We have to start seeing this issue as a fundamental issue for the future of our society.”

He suggests grass roots people can also generate opportunities for ex-offenders. “These folks on probation and parole need support and second chances and opportunities. And finally, we have to educate kids, especially minority kids, to make better decisions to minimize the risk that they will be arrested and prosecuted.”

Calling the previous crack disparity “the most severe example of racism in the criminal justice system,” Taifa of Soros, said, “We have cracked the disparity, but not broken it.”