Crack releases may double
The number of crack-cocaine dealers and users who could be released early from federal prison has nearly doubled from initial estimates, local officials now say.Last year, the U.S. Sentencing Commission announced new, retroactive sentencing guidelines for the drug offenders that could mean early release for 224 federal inmates who were sentenced in the U.S. District Court for southern Ohio, which includes Columbus, Dayton and Cincinnati.
Since then, a review of offenders’ files pushed the number up to 439 inmates, federal public defender Steve Nolder said. And of those, 85 could be released in the next few weeks.
The federal change was prompted by years of outcry that sentencing guidelines for crack cocaine are racist and unfair when compared with those for powder cocaine.
About 85 percent of those convicted of crack-cocaine crimes are black.
Previously, drug dealers could be sentenced to 20 years in prison for having 5 grams of crack cocaine, the same as the penalty for 500 grams of powder cocaine. The new guidelines don’t completely erase that disparity, but they bring crack and powder cocaine sentences closer. Besides the weight of the drugs involved, dozens of factors influence sentences, including past arrests and whether a gun was used in the crime.
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