It is good to see that law enforcement is finally taking on crystal methamphetamine as seriously as it did crack cocaine. Increased law enforcement crackdowns in conjunction with more effective alternatives to automatic prison sentences for non-violent or first time offenders has led to a shifting racial make up of drug offenders in prison.

According to the Sentencing Project, the number of blacks in prison for drug offenses is declining while the number of whites is increasing.

For the first time since crack cocaine sparked a war on drugs 20 years ago, the number of black Americans in state prisons for drug offenses has fallen sharply, while the number of white prisoners convicted for drug crimes has increased, according to a report released yesterday.

The D.C.-based Sentencing Project reported that the number of black inmates in state prisons for drug offenses had fallen from 145,000 in 1999 to 113,500 in 2005, a 22 percent decline. In that period, the number of white drug offenders rose steadily, from about 50,000 to more than 72,000, a 43 percent increase. The number of Latino drug offenders was virtually unchanged at about 51,000.

The findings represent a significant shift in the racial makeup of those incarcerated for drug crimes and could signal a gradual change in the demographics of the nation’s prison population of 2 million, which has been disproportionately black for decades. Drug offenders make up about a quarter of the prison population.

Source – Washington Post, A Racial Shift in Drug-Crime Prisoners Fewer Blacks and More Whites, Says Sentencing Project

Drug use and the drug trade are the gangrene of many poor urban and rural communities. High level and repeat manufacturers, importers and distributors of crack cocaine and crystal methamphetamine should be locked up. But putting non-violent drug offenders in prison as a first option doesn’t make good sense, or good dollars and cents, in the long run and it doesn’t end the problems. It only postpones them.

"I have no doubt that crystal meth explains some of the white increase, but I’m not ready to say it’s the reason for all of the white increase," said Marc Mauer, executive director of the Sentencing Project, which opposes stiff penalties for nonviolent drug crimes. "It’s also hard to imagine that [drug courts] are not having some effect. Most drug courts are in urban areas where African Americans live."
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Drug courts offer nonviolent offenders the option of undergoing rigorous substance-abuse treatment and criminal rehabilitation or going to jail. There are more than 2,000 such courts in operation, mostly in cities with large black communities ravaged by violence associated with crack cocaine. White offenders also are increasingly winding up in drug courts for abusing methamphetamines.

Source – Washington Post, A Racial Shift in Drug-Crime Prisoners Fewer Blacks and More Whites, Says Sentencing Project

Some experts on the ground aren’t seeing any changes at all. Read the entire article for yourself. What do you think?

Hat tip to Blogamiga Sylvia/M for highlighting this story on Facebook.