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African-Americans Receive Longer Jail Sentences Essay

Selling in public obviously can result in an arrest far easier than selling in a dorm, or a bar, or a workplace, as whites tend to do. Police can stop a black man on the street and frisk him without a warrant. And so if African-Americans are far more likely to be selling crack in the open air, and crack sales result in far longer jail sentences than powder cocaine sales, there is at least part of the answer as to why African-Americans serve longer sentences in some cases. A Washington Post analysis of 79,000 federal sentences between the years 1993 and 1995 (referenced in Jet Magazine) reflects that "Blacks received 2% longer jail terms than whites" nationally, and in the District of Columbia Blacks received sentences that were 12% longer than whites (Jet Magazine).

Meantime, in the publication Sentencing Law and Policy (a participant in the law Professor Blogs Network) the authors reference an opinion column taken from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, that alludes to sentencing unfairness. "While the average federal prison sentence for black offenders was about five months longer than for whites in 1984, by 2001, the average sentence for blacks was almost 30 months...

The Sentencing Law and Policy publication asserts that (quoting the Sentencing Commission) "the sentencing guidelines and mandatory minimum statues have a greater adverse impact on black offenders than did the factors taken into account by judges in the discretionary system…"
Works Cited

Contexts. "Black/White Disparities in Prison Sentences." Sociological Images. Retrieved January 30, 2009, from http://contexts.org.

Doege, David. "Drug Sentences Worse For Blacks." Journal Interactive. Wisconsin State

Journal. (2007).

Jet. "Federal Prison Study Reveals That Black Defendants Still Get Longer Sentences.

Vol. 90, No. 24 (1996).

Sentencing Law and Policy. "Racial Disparity and Sentencing Reform." Retrieved

January 29, 2009, from http://sentencing.typepad.com. (2004).

The Sentencing Project. "Crack Cocaine Sentencing Policy: Unjustified and Unreasonable."

(2001).…

Sources used in this document:
Works Cited

Contexts. "Black/White Disparities in Prison Sentences." Sociological Images. Retrieved January 30, 2009, from http://contexts.org.

Doege, David. "Drug Sentences Worse For Blacks." Journal Interactive. Wisconsin State

Journal. (2007).

Jet. "Federal Prison Study Reveals That Black Defendants Still Get Longer Sentences.
January 29, 2009, from http://sentencing.typepad.com. (2004).
(2001). Retrieved January 29, 2009, from http://www.sentencingproject.org.
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