Crack penalties are eased, inmates freed

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

Antwain Black was facing a few more years in Leavenworth for dealing crack. But on Tuesday, he was on his way home to Illinois.

Black, 36, was among the first of potentially thousands of inmates who are being released early from federal prison because of an easing of the harsh penalties for crack that were enacted in the 1980s, when the drug was a terrifying new phenomenon in America’s cities.

“I can’t wait for my son to get home,” said Black’s mother, Donetta Adams of Springfield, Ill.

The 1980s-era federal laws punished crack-related crimes much more severely than those involving powdered cocaine — a practice criticized as racially discriminatory because most of those convicted of crack offenses were black.

More recently, the penalties for crack were reduced to bring them in line with those for powder, and Tuesday was the first day inmates locked up under the old rules could get out early.

Black pleaded guilty in 2003 and was sentenced to 15 years. With changes in the law, good behavior and credit for time served in jail while awaiting sentencing, he was set free Tuesday from the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kan. He spent 81/2 years locked up.

Adams said her son earned a high-school equivalency diploma behind bars, likes to cook and has talked about opening a restaurant.

Some 12,000 prisoners are expected to benefit from reduced sentences over the next several years, with an estimated 1,900 eligible for immediate release as of Tuesday. On average, inmates convicted of crack crimes will get three years shaved off their sentences. The reductions do not apply to people found guilty of crack offenses under state laws.

Under the old system, a person convicted of crack possession got the same mandatory prison term as someone with 100 times the amount of powdered cocaine.

The law was seen as racially unfair since blacks made up the majority of people convicted of crack crimes, while whites were more likely to be found guilty of offenses involving powdered cocaine.

In 2010, Congress reduced the disparity in sentences for future cases. Last summer, the U.S. Sentencing Commission decided to apply the measure to inmates already doing time.