crack cocaine and the new prison sentence

As of Friday, November 2, 2007 the prsion sentence for crack cocaine as been reduced from 10 years and one month to eight years and 10 months. A sentencing commission is deciding on November 13th whether or not the new guidlines will apply retroactively to about 19,500 prisoners. One of the main reasons for changing the sentence is because in a Supreme Court case in 2005, federal judges were allowed to apply lower sentences depending on the case. This caused a lost of credibility for United States Sentencing Commission. Now that this new sentence is in effect, there is an estimated reduction of 3,800 prisoners in the next 15 years.
The point of this article is it applies to the book Code of the Street. In this book, Elijah Anderson writes about deceny, street, and codes of inner cities. As one gets further into the book, he/she will see the enormous problem of the underground economy of drugs. These drugs include everything, however, the biggest one is crack cocaine. Men that cannot find jobs because of lack of resources and jobs turn to dealing crack cocaine and they persuade women to become hooked on it. These women then depend on the drug and do anything to get money. The begin to get involved with prostitution, steal money from their mothers, and spend all of their welfare checks on the drugs.
There are several problems with the lowering of the sentencing. There is also talk to eliminating a minimum of drugs found on a person to be arrested. There are different standards for whites and blacks, there always have been and unfortunately there probably always will be. I do not know the sentencing terms for regular cocaine, heroine, or marijuana. I do not think I am wrong though when I say that an uppermiddle class white man who deals or is caught with cocaine probably does less jail time than a black man who deals or uses crack cocaine. Whatever the terms are, by lowering the sentence, dealers of all kinds, white, black, Hispanic, or Asian, will be put back on the streets to deal drugs again. I am not saying that drug dealers should be put away for life, but there has to be a way to fight drugs more effectively and by getting rid of minimum amount to be arrested is not going to help. If this law is passed, federal prisons will overflow with violators. While it is important to try and keep jails filtered because they are overcroweded, it is more important to find more affective ways of providing jobs for the innercity population and to fight drugs.