STUDY QUERIES MANDATORY SENTENCES

By Zachary R. Dowdy, Globe Staff

A study of Massachusetts prisoners that links poverty, race, and crime may
recharge the ongoing debate over whether drug dealers and users with no
history of violence should receive mandatory sentences at a time when
prisons are overcrowded.

Rather than prison terms, the study recommends alternative sanctions such
as intensive probation and treatmentoriented drug courts for nonviolent
offenders.

The 100page study, released yesterday, was written by William N.
Brownsberger, a state assistant attorney general specializing in narcotics
who is also a research fellow in drug policy at Harvard Medical School.

Prison beds occupied by petty dealers and users serving long prison terms
as a result of drug laws enacted during a more violent era should be
reserved for violent criminals, who pose a more immediate danger to
society, the study suggests.

The study recommends that policy makers reconsider whether publicsafety
concerns outweigh the high costs and disproportionate impact that mandatory
sentences have on minority offenders.

The study cites statistics showing that twothirds of all men sentenced to
state prison from July 1, 1994 to June 30, 1996 under mandatory drug
sentencing laws had never been convicted of a violent crime.

The report, ''Profile of AntiDrug Law Enforcement in Urban Poverty Areas
in Massachusetts,'' also says that half of all prisoners sentenced for drug
offenses had never been charged with a violent crime.

Blacks and Latinos account for 85 percent of those drugrelated
commitments, with Latinos making up nearly 55 percent.

Although Brownsberger said he did not set out to demonstrate racism in the
criminal justice system, he did find that minority offenders were sent to
prison more often than white offenders.

However, Brad Bailey, executive director of the Governor's Alliance Against
Drugs, disagreed with the study's conclusions, saying that, in his view,
the very act of dealing drugs is violence against the community and should
be punished like other violent crimes.

''If you're of the perspective that I am, that people who sell drugs are
committing crimes of violence and contributing to the level of violence in
their communities, then you have to disagree with the recommendations of
the study,'' Bailey said.

A supporter of mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses, Bailey said
drug courts and alternative sentences are not appropriate for major drug
dealers. Their turf wars escalated the war on drugs and prompted states and
the federal government to set mandatory minimum sentences.

Janet Y. Johnson, site coordinator for the Dimock Community Health Center
who works at Dorchester Drug Court, countered Bailey's view, saying
mandatory minimums don't capture suppliers, or kingpins, but too often
crack down on mere pawns in drug distribution.

The strong links the study finds between race, money, and crime place the
report in line with studies by the US Sentencing Commission, Federal
Judicial Center, and Sentencing Project on the legacy of mandatory drug
sentencing.

Among the study's most stark revelations is that Latinos are sent to state
prison for drug offenses at a rate 81 times that of whites also convicted
of drug crimes, and blacks at a rate 39 times that of whites.

Drugs have had a profound effect on the criminal justice system; about 20
percent of state prisoners are serving terms for drug dealing.

Those figures are consistent with a national American Bar Association
report, ''The State of Criminal Justice,'' which shows that whites
constitute 75 percent of drug users but 62 percent of drug arrests. That
report said blacks make up 15 percent of drug users and a third of arrests.

Furthermore, a person who lives in a neighborhood designated by the federal
government as an ''extreme poverty'' area, or having some 40 percent of its
population below the poverty line, is 19 times more likely to be
incarcerated for a drug offense than someone who lives in a nonpoverty
area, said the study.

Boston, Springfield, and Lawrence hold the largest clusters of poverty, the
report said. But Holyoke, 47 percent of whose population of 18,000 people
is poor, had an incarceration rate of 608 males over 16 years old for each
100,000 residents, the highest of the 11 cities with the largest poverty
clusters.

Chief Justice Robert Mulligan, who chairs the Massachusetts Sentencing
Commission, said the study makes a strong case for adoption of flexible
sentencing guidelines, which the commission released last spring and which
may be implemented early next year.

''I was shocked at how this study documents the impact these laws are
having on minority communities,'' Mulligan said, adding that he regrets
that he has imposed heavy sentences on minor players in the drug trade,
such as accomplices and lookouts for dealers or buyers. ''The impact there
has been devastating.''