American Civil Liberties Union

There are 2.3 million people behind bars in this country — that is triple the amount of prisoners we had in 1987 — and 25 percent of those incarcerated are locked up for drug offenses. Taxpayers spend almost $70 billion a year on corrections and incarceration. The war on drugs has also been a war on communities of color. The racial disparities are staggering: despite the fact that whites engage in drug offenses at a higher rate than African-Americans, African-Americans are incarcerated on drug charges at a rate that is 10 times greater than that of whites.

When we incarcerate drug offenders, they stay locked up for lengthy periods of time — and often forever. We increasingly sentence them to life in prison under three-strikes-and-you’re-outlaws for petty drug crimes. Disappointingly, our Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of laws imposing disproportionate mandatory sentences of life without parole for simple possession of drugs. The ACLU has called for mandatory minimums to be abolished or reformed because they generate unnecessarily harsh sentences, tie judges’ hands in considering individual circumstances, create racial disparities in sentencing and empower prosecutors to force defendants to bargain away their constitutional rights. 

In June 2011, the United States Sentencing Commission took a step toward creating fairness in federal sentencing by retroactively applying the new Fair Sentencing Act (FSA) guidelines, which address unfair sentencing disparities for certain offenses, to individuals sentenced before the law was enacted. This decision will help ensure that over 12,000 people — 85 percent of whom are African-Americans — will have the opportunity to have their sentences for crack cocaine offenses reviewed by a federal judge and possibly reduced.

There is still much to be done: through advocacy and litigation, the ACLU will continue to seek an end to this failed war on drugs and our costly addiction to incarceration.

Resources

ACLU Letter of Support for the Fair Sentencing Act of 2009 (2009 resource): A letter to senators encouraging them to support the Fair Sentencing Act of 2009.

ACLU Statement on the U.S. Sentencing Commission (2011 resource): Statement to the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security on the current federal sentencing system.

Dear Mr. President (resource): An ACLU resource on the unjust crack-powder cocaine sentencing disparity.

War on Drugs blog series (2011 blog series): June 2011 marked the 40th anniversary of President Richard Nixon's declaration of a "war on drugs" — a war that has cost roughly a trillion dollars, has produced little to no effect on the supply of or demand for drugs in the United States, and has contributed to making America the world's largest incarcerator. 

Just Say No to the War on Drugs (2011 video)

Most Popular

Sentencing Commission Votes to Make Federal Crack Sentencing Retroactive (2011 press release)

Mandatory Sentencing is not the Answer (2011 blog post)

President Obama Poised To Sign Bill Reducing Cocaine Sentencing Disparity After House Passage (2010 press release)

Key Senate Committee Passes Cocaine Sentencing Legislation (2010 press release)

Crack, Powder Cocaine Sentencing Disparity Undermines Criminal Justice System (2009 press release)

ACLU Sets the Record Straight on Federal Drug Sentencing Retroactivity (2007 press release)

ACLU Says Mandatory Minimums are Discriminatory and Urges Inter-American Commission to Condemn Unfair Practice (2006 press release): As the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights heard from experts and a victim at a hearing in March 2006 on the discriminatory impact of mandatory minimum sentences, the American Civil Liberties Union urged the body to reject that unjust practice. In conjunction with other civil rights and criminal justice organizations, the ACLU submitted written testimony and recommendations to the Commission.