NEWS

October 5, 2007
Prisons' racial disparity raises debate
Blacks: More behind bars in Iowa for drug-related crimes
Whites: Fewer land in prison since anti-meth law passed

The number of blacks behind bars for drug-related crimes is rising again in Iowa. At the same time, a new anti-methamphetamine law has resulted in fewer new prison admissions for white Iowans.

Officials in drug, corrections and law enforcement circles say it's not yet clear why more blacks are being sent to prison, but the impact is clear: The state's notorious disproportion of blacks behind bars vs. whites is growing again.

"You may be at the bleeding edge of something really new going on in the drug war at this point," said Ryan King of the Washington-D.C.-based Sentencing Project. The nonprofit sentencing reform group released a national study in July ranking Iowa No. 1 in the nation for the rate that it disproportionately incarcerates blacks vs. whites. "What you may be witnessing there may soon be replicated elsewhere around the country."

News that Iowa's black incarceration rate is growing comes at a crucial time. This week, a group appointed by Gov. Chet Culver to revisit the issue delivered a series of budget requests worth about $9.7 million.

If approved by the Legislature, that money and manpower promises to benefit a variety of state agencies that deliver early childhood education, community-based corrections, re-entry programs for former inmates and drug-abuse prevention. Several state officials said that money is a long-term vaccination for black children, who are more likely than whites to enter the juvenile justice system and be expelled from school in Iowa.

But state legislative leaders, Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court also are revisiting disparities in state and federal sentencing laws for some drug offenses that many advocates say could make the biggest difference.

One case before the Supreme Court explores the reasonableness of a lighter-than-mandated 15-year sentence for a Desert Storm veteran who was caught distributing crack cocaine, raising mandatory-sentence disparities that many call unfair between crack and powder cocaine.

Crack cocaine is more commonly used by blacks, and sentences for crack offenses are typically tougher than for powder cocaine offenses.

"I've never seen this kind of movement on this issue as there is now," said Rep. Wayne Ford, D-Des Moines, who advocates changes in state and federal sentencing laws.

Iowa drug czar Gary Kendell, a former county attorney, agrees that preventive efforts need strengthening and that judicial discretion should be revisited. But he does not agree that sentences for any drugs, including crack, should be reduced.

"In Iowa, a first offense for dealing meth and crack don't land you in prison," he said. "Usually by the time people get to prison, they've generally earned their way."

Inmate trend shifts after law change

Meth has long been the hard drug of choice among the state's overwhelmingly white population. The proportion of blacks newly committed for drug crimes began to decline when meth makers and dealers began facing more prison time in the late 1990s.

A 2005 law curbing sales of meth's main ingredient changed that.

In fiscal year 2004, drug-related admissions in state prisons for whites were at a near high at 917.

After sales of pseudoephedrine, a drug found in cold and allergy medicines, were restricted to pharmacies, meth-making became much more difficult. By June, at the end of fiscal year 2007, drug-related admissions in state prisons for whites had dropped almost 33 percent, to 619.

Meanwhile, the number of new black admissions into Iowa prisons for drug-related offenses climbed almost 46 percent - to 243 this year from 167 in 2004.

Today, the percentage of new inmates who are black - 23.7 - is at its highest point since at least 1995, the first year statistics were available from Iowa's Division of Criminal and Juvenile Justice Planning.

"Iowa's image of being tolerant is being shattered with these numbers," Ford said.

Officials in other states said Thursday that it's still unclear what effect anti-meth laws are having on the racial makeup of their prison populations, but there are signs of changes.

Minnesota's prison population continues to grow, but at a slower rate in the last few years. A decline in new commitments for meth offenses began in 2004, prior to enactment of pseudoephedrine laws.

During Minnesota's 2004 fiscal year, 375 blacks were newly committed to prison for drug crimes vs. 806 new white drug offenders. Of all new inmates admitted that year, blacks accounted for 29.4 percent, whereas whites accounted for 53.8 percent.

By 2007, the number of blacks newly committed to prison for drug crimes grew to 428, while the number of whites dipped to 777. Blacks accounted for 30.1 percent, whereas whites accounted for 53.4 percent.

In Missouri, which is undergoing sentencing reform, the prison population is dropping, and the state is seeing fewer blacks and whites committed for drug crimes.

Long on history, short on hope?

In 1999, a Des Moines Register investigation found the proportion of black men in prison, on parole or on probation in Iowa had reached 1 in 12 - a figure that exceeded that of most other states. The study prompted former Gov. Tom Vilsack to form a commission, whose three years of study led to the budget recommendations from Culver's group.

But emotions on the issue flared anew this July when the Sentencing Project released its study showing the rate of black incarceration in Iowa was six times that of whites. Feeding that disparity, researchers said, was that blacks make up just 2.3 percent of Iowa's 2.98 million residents.

Whether any progress will be made on the issue remains a matter of serious debate.

Those who defend and advocate for the disadvantaged argue that state leaders have done almost nothing to address the biases in the justice system that contribute to Iowa's notoriety.

"I think a lot of people are disillusioned and discouraged that we continue to talk about the issue but don't follow through," said Abraham Funchess, who heads Iowa's Commission on the Status of African Americans. "What we need to do is shift the conversation away from talking about our pain to start talking about our plan."

Yet Iowans who have watched and read about the disproportion complain that responsibility and accountability remain distant concepts to too many black youth. Given blacks' shortage of political clout, leaders like the Rev. Keith Ratliff of the NAACP and many others have said the responsibility for change rests largely in the black community.

But Funchess says that community is suffering from burnout. To enliven activism, he and other black leaders have drafted an action plan called the Ongoing Covenant with Black Iowa.

Meetings on that plan, which also calls for sentencing reform, are ongoing.

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