The United States Sentencing Guidelines and Crack Cocaine: A Call for Parsimony in the Form of Intermediate Sanctions

This is a qualitiative study that examines the assertions made by other legal scholars that minority based sentencing disparity, as it relates to the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, is due to intentional racial, ethnic, and gender discrimination. Professor Celesta A. Albonetti (1997) makes the unfounded assertion that minority based sentencing disparity, as it relates to the Guidelines, is due to intentional discrimination by federal judges and prosecutors. When examining minority based sentencing disparity under the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, black males are incarcerated longer than other minority groups for violations of federal cocaine statutes. Black males are also incarcerated longer than nonminority offenders for violations of federal cocaine statutes. Black males are also incarcerated longer than nonminority offenders for violations of federal cocaine statutes. Minority based sentencing disparity does exist, but is not due to intentional discrimination. Minority based sentencing disparity is the product of past employment discrimination in the United States and legal, structural aspects of federal statutes and their interaction with the Guidelines. The primary cause for large numbers of black males being incarcerated more often and for longer periods of time is due to the fact that certain federal crimes that are committed disproportionately by white males. Crack cocaine violations are committed disproportionately by black males due to discrimination and economic deprivation. The false perception of intentional racial and ethnic sentencing disparity erroneously attributed to the Guidelines is due to the U.S. Congress and its willingness to place more emphasis upon the possession, use, and distribution of crack cocaine, the historicalexistence of deeply rooted racial, ethnic, and economic discrimination embedded in American culture, and the failure of the U.S. Sentencing Commission to formulate a sound and well balanced sentencing rationale. This study examines the controversy surrounding the U.S. Congress and the negative impace of mandatory minimum sentences on the Guidelines and minority offenders. The Guidelines transition from legally binding administrative law to vague advisory provisions is also considered. In addition to a consideration of negative effects of mandatory minimum sentences on the Guidelines and minority offenders, the Commission's inability ot justify a modified just dessert sentencing rationale with prolonged periods of offender incapicitation is also scrutinized. In order to dispel the myth of intentional discrimination presented by Albonetti, and to urther support the argument for the legal, structual causes of discrimination, and experiement by David B. Mustard (2001), a professor of Law and Economics at the University of Georgia, adn an experiment conducted by Professors Rodney L. Engen, a professor at North Carolina State University, and Rodney R. Gainey, a professor at Old Mominion University are compared. Mustard applies standard regression analysis to the Guidelines determinate sentencing grid and comes to the conclusion that the greatest sentencing disparity exists between black male and white male offenders who are isolated in a one-on-one basis in the same district court with similar characteristics. Engen and Gainey (2000) assert that standard linear regression analysis is unsuited for the determinate sentencing grid because it assumes a linear, additive relationship between crime seriousness and criminal history. In order to properly control for interaction between tese tow legal factors, Engen and Gainey assert that researchers should be aware that standard linear regression models erroneously assume a uniform change in the dependent variable with each unit increase of the independent variable. Mustard's standard regression model does assume a uniform change in the dependent variable with each unit increase of the independent variable. The Guidelines typically increase the severity of the variables radically for more serious offenses, including offenders with drug and weapons related criminal histories. Standard regression experiments in the field of criminal law and determinate sentencingthat fail to control for interaction between legal factors will result in distorted extralegal factors. Norval Morris (1990), a professor at the University of Chicago School of Law, asserts that the answer to past discrimination against minorities and the legal, structural problems that plague the Guidelines is to implement intermediate sanctions in the form of compulsory, community based drug rehabilitation programs.Master'sCollege of Arts and Sciences: Public AdministrationUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/117715/1/Hubbard.pd