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By:William RaspberryThe Washington Post

"When you're up to your hips in alligators, it's hard to remember that your
initial objective was to drain the swamp."

I think that's an old Cajun expression, and I'm not sure that its most
accurate rendering includes the word "hip." But it does seem an apt way to
think about the bitter controversy over the disparate sentencing for
"crack" and powder cocaine.

The most troublesome of the alligators in the analogy is the fact that
users and sellers of "crack" overwhelmingly black are far more likely
to go to prison and to serve longer (mandatory) terms than are users and
sellers of cocaine in its powder form a group far likelier to comprise
whites.

The key reason: the law that subjects a seller of a mere 5 grams of
smokable crack to the same sentence a mandatory five years as one
caught selling 500 grams of powdered cocaine.

That law is one reason for the dismal report of a week ago that just shy of
half of all young black men in Washington (and no doubt similar ratios
elsewhere) are enmeshed in the criminal justice system: in prison, on
parole or probation, awaiting trial or sentencing or being sought on a
warrant many of them on crackrelated charges. The comparable figure for
young white men in the clutches of the law in Washington? Perhaps 2 percent.

When the federal legislation was passed, back in 1988, it was with a
specific objective to drain a crackinfested swamp that threatened to
destroy the black inner cities of America (and which threatened, like other
ghettospawned problems, to spread into the surrounding cities and
suburbs). It was because crack was believed to be especially menacing that
the special legislation was passed.

Cocaine, the thenexisting consensus had it, may have been bad and illegal.
But crack was something new under the sun: powerfully addictive, extremely
dangerous and cheap. Listen to Rep. E. Clay Shaw, RFla., explaining the
rationale behind his 1988 legislation:

"By its nature, crack is a drug dealer's dream. The major target market for
crack dealers has been our youngsters....Crack dealers have virtually
memorized the 1986 drug penalties. They know if they carry less than 5
grams of crack, they will not be subject to the tough 1986 penalties...

"We must not let the drug dealers outsmart us.... Vote for my amendment in
order to keep the pressure on the crack dealers victimizing our youngsters.
Crack is an extraordinarily dangerous drug, so we must take extraordinary
steps to combat it."

I don't mean to suggest that Shaw's proposal (which passed) had no
opponents. Rep. Charles Rangel, DN.Y., voted against it but because the
prosecutors he talked to didn't want it and because the lowered threshold
amounts would mean enormous new pressure either to build more jails or to
release prisoners (including some violent offenders) not serving mandatory
sentences.

I have not found any record of contemporary objection based on the easily
predictable fact the more blacks than whites would come under the new
penalty. Nor is that particularly surprising. In a recent oped piece in
which she roundly condemns the "liberal revisionist" critics of the
sentencing guidelines, Nancy Hammerle, a professor of economics at
Stonehill College, makes this point:

"The victims of crack were overwhelmingly black. Few crack babies were
white. Few whites contracted AIDS through crackdriven prostitution. Far
fewer whites than blacks were victims of crack market turf wars. Fewer
whites were robbed to finance crack purchases. From foster homes to
emergency rooms, the victims were seldom white."

Hammerle does not defend the 100to1 ratio disparity in the triggering
amounts of powder vs. cocaine. She even acknowledges, along with many other
observers, that the menace of crack may have been exaggerated at the time
of the nowcontroversial legislation. She grants, as do I, that the whole
thing may warrant a new look.

The relevant point is much simpler: The disparate sentences for crack and
powdered cocaine were neither inadvertent nor racist. The guidelines may
have been badly designed and based on nowquestionable information. But
they were not designed as an attack on the black community but as an effort
to save it.

Isn't it possible to deal with an unanticipated infestation of alligators
without questioning the motives of those who at least tried to drain the
swamp.