Sentencing and Punishment: The Quest for Justice by Susan Easton and Christine Pipe

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Due to the unfair sentencing disparity between crack and cocaine, despite the fact that the two are the same drug, just in different forms, the government endorsed a law to reduce the sentencing of those who were convicted of crack related offenses. Repealing past wrong doings seemed to be a hurdle initially for lawmakers, but ultimately inmates finally received some of the justice that they deserved. The disparity in sentencing was seen by many as to be a racial war, considering the fact that blacks typically used crack, and whites used powder cocaine. Even though they are in essence the same drug, just broken down into different forms. The amount of jail time someone convicted for cocaine related charge was drastically shorter than the amount given to someone who dealt with crack. On August 3rd, 2010 President Barack Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act into law. This is not the first law signed, but it is more extensive, and meets different criteria than the others. Unfortunately, there were several Acts produced before Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, but some failed to be introduced, and some only pacified the problem With everything in life, we can work to fix injustices and a problem in society, but trying to fix what was wrong not only takes time, but also may be imperfect. As mentioned previously race played and still does play a large role in how crime is treated in the United States. This article explains how the racial disparity is not a coincidence and the article provides facts of the disparity, and what the Fair Sentencing Act does. The author begins the article by chronologically exploring the details of how the disparity began. The Anti- Drug Abuse Act of 1986, which was introduced in the Reagan-era, was responsible for the disparity. The Act stated that 1 gram of cocaine was equal to 100 grams of crack (Davis 2011). An extremely large difference. She ends the article explaining that despite the fact that there is a decrease in the ratio, it is still unfair. The Fair Sentencing Act only works to reduce the disparity and does not eliminate it completely (Davis 2011). While the ratio was once 100-1(crack to cocaine), the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 brought it down to 18-1. Despite the fact that the Fair Sentencing Act is not 100% fair, it did work to provide many changes in the sentencing guidelines.

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