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  • Essay / Sentence and punishment: the quest for justice by...

    Due to the unfair disparity in penalties between crack and cocaine, despite the fact that both are the same drug, but in different forms, the government approved a law to reduce sentences for people convicted of crack-related offenses. Repealing past wrongdoing seemed like an obstacle at first for lawmakers, but eventually the inmates finally received some of the justice they deserved. The sentencing disparity was seen by many as a race war, given that blacks typically used crack cocaine and whites used powder cocaine. Even though it's essentially the same drug, just broken down into different forms. The length of a prison sentence for a person convicted of a cocaine-related charge was significantly shorter than that given to someone who used crack cocaine. On August 3, 2010, President Barack Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act into law. This is not the first law signed, but it is more extensive and meets different criteria than the others. Unfortunately, several laws were developed before the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, but some were not introduced, and some only alleviated the problem. With everything in life, we can work to fix injustices and a problem in society, but trying to fix what went wrong not only takes time, but can also be imperfect. As previously mentioned, race has played and still plays a significant role in how crime is handled in the United States. This article explains how the racial disparity is not a coincidence and the article provides facts about the disparity and what the Fair Sentencing Act does. The author begins the article by chronologically exploring the details of the origin of the disparity. The Anti-Drug Act of 1986, introduced during the Reagan era, is responsible for this disparity. The law stated that one gram of cocaine was equivalent to 100 grams of crack (Davis 2011). An extremely big difference. She ends the article by explaining that even if the ratio is decreasing, it is still unfair. The Fair Sentencing Act only reduces the disparity and does not completely eliminate it (Davis 2011). While the ratio was once 100-1 (crack/cocaine), the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 reduced it to 18-1. Despite the fact that the Fair Sentencing Act is not 100% fair, it has allowed for many changes to sentencing guidelines.