Federal Regulations:

28 C.F.R. § 91.1 - 91.4 (1998): Provides for federal incentive grants to states to develop, expand, and/or operate correctional facilities to: (1) ensure that prison space is available to confine violent offenders and (2) to implement "truth in sentencing" laws for sentencing violent offenders. (3 pages, no bibliography.)

Statistics indicate that the majority of persons in, and going, to prisons are black. The question that I asked myself is, "Are these incentive grants actually a way to ensure keeping blacks in prison once they arrive?" Several studies, and living life everyday, indicate that many blacks resort to crime in order to get things in life that they want - and sometimes need. They, in many cases, cannot get these things otherwise because they are from an environment (that entails public schools that do cannot adequately teach necessary skills due to lack of funding and/or low-income households) that does not allow them to go to college in order to gain the skills that are necessary in order to make an adequate amount of money. Instead of providing incentive grants to build and maintain prisons, this money could, and should, be used to provide the essential education that is necessary in order to prevent individuals from resorting to crime; thereby making life beyond inner-city ghettoes and criminal activity accessible to blacks.[Excerpted from Race and Sentencing by Natalia Henry, 2nd Year Law Student, The University of Dayton School of Law, Fall 1998 http://www.udayton.edu/~race/annotate/98henry.htm See for more information.]



Henry, Natalia

Fed. Sent. Guide. 2D1.1 (1992): Provides a "Drug Quantity Table" to establish the "base offense level" of persons caught possessing certain types/forms of illegal drugs. The amount of "cocaine" (powder) and "cocaine base" (crack cocaine) required to establish the same base offense level has a 100:1 ratio (i.e. "Level 42": "1500kg or more of Cocaine; ... 15kg or more of Cocaine Base".) (17 pages, no bibliography)

The only rationale that I see for distinguishing between the two forms of cocaine is the fact that common knowledge reveals that more blacks deal in crack cocaine versus powder cocaine due to the price difference between the drugs. I believe that the distinction in the amount of cocaine is primarily due to the fact that common knowledge also reveals that wealthy whites deal in, and use, powder cocaine versus crack cocaine. Therefore, one must be found with more of that drug (versus crack cocaine) before he/she will be prosecuted. Illegal drugs are just that - illegal, especially when they are of the same type. [Excerpted from Race and Sentencing by Natalia Henry, 2nd Year Law Student, The University of Dayton School of Law, Fall 1998 http://www.udayton.edu/~race/annotate/98henry.htm See for more information.]