Crack cocaine offenders to get five-year prison sentence

New amendments to sentencing range for people caught with the drug went into effect.

Photo: Crack cocaine offenders to get five-year prison sentence

Federal law sets a mandatory minimum five-year prison sentence for trafficking in 5 grams of crack cocaine. It takes 500 grams of cocaine powder to warrant the same sentence. The crack-powder disparity has a strong racial dimension because more than four-fifths of crack cocaine offenders in federal courts last year were black.

The new guidelines for those possessing 5 grams or more of crack cocaine are prison terms of 51 months to 63 months, down from the old range of 63 months to 78 months. The new range for offenders possessing at least 50 grams is 97 months to 121 months in prison, down from 121 months to 151 months. Those ranges apply for first-time crack-cocaine convictions.

In April, the commission voted for the lower recommended sentencing ranges for those caught with crack cocaine. The recommendation sent to Congress on May 1 became effective Thursday after 180 days of congressional review.

The reduction will be the focus of a Nov. 13 commission hearing to consider whether to make the lower guideline penalty retroactively available to 19,500 crack cocaine offenders who were sentenced previously.

A commission analysis estimated the change would reduce the size of the federal prison population by 3,800 in 15 years. Such a reduction would result in savings of over $87 million (60.3 million EUR), according to The Sentencing Project, a private organization tracking the issue.

The sentencing commission is urging Congress to repeal the mandatory prison term for simple possession and increase the amount of crack required to trigger five-year and 10-year mandatory minimum prison terms as a way to focus on major drug traffickers. The mandatory five-year minimum trumps the lower end of the new guideline range that took effect Thursday, meaning the newly available range is 60 to 63 months. The same principle applies to the 10-year mandatory minimum, making the newly available range 120 to 121 months.