Nearly one in three young black men between the ages of 20 and 29 are under criminal justice supervision on any given day, according to a report issued this month by The Sentencing Project. The "War on Drugs" is the single largest factor contributing to this crisis facing the African American community.

Young Black Americans and the Criminal Justice System: Five Years Later, walks in the footsteps of a similar Sentencing Project report released in 1990. The 1990 report found that nearly one in four African American males in the age group 20-29 was under some form of criminal justice supervision -- in prison or jail, on probation or on parole. While that report generated extensive national attention and dialogue, "get-tough" attitudes and policies nevertheless have continued to intensify. With the new wave of harsh sentencing laws recently passed (e.g. Three-Strikes You're Out), the one in three figure is set to get even worse, soon. For example, a 1995 survey by Corrections Compendium found that state corrections officials expect their 1994 inmate populations to rise 51% by the year 2000.

"If one in three young white men were under criminal justice supervision, the nation would declare a national emergency," said Marc Mauer, Assistant Director of The Sentencing Project and co-author of the study.

The key findings of Five Years Later are as follows:

• Almost one in three (32.2%) young black men in the age group 20-29 is under criminal justice supervision on any given day -- in prison or jail, on probation or parole.
• The cost of criminal justice control for these 827,440 young African American males is about $6 billion a year.
• In recent years, African American women have experienced the greatest increase in criminal justice supervision of all demographic groups, with their rate of criminal justice supervision rising by 78% from 1989-94.
• Drug policies constitute the single most significant factor contributing to the rise in criminal justice populations in recent years, with the number of incarcerated drug offenders having risen by 510% from 1983 to 1993.
• The number of Black (non-Hispanic) women incarcerated in state prisons for drug offenses increased more than eight-fold -- 828% -- from 1986 to 1991.
• While African American arrest rates for violent crime -- 45% of arrests nationally -- are disproportionate to their share of the population, this proportion has not changed significantly for twenty years. For drug offenses, though, the African American proportion of arrests increased from 24% in 1980 to 39% in 1993, well above the African American proportion of drug users nationally.
• African Americans and Hispanics constitute almost 90% of offenders sentenced to state prison for drug possession.

The report recommends, among other things, promotion of "a renewed dialogue on drug policy," noting that former Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders was disciplined for advocating a discussion of a broad range of policy options. The report also notes that because the one in three figure holds for any given day, an examination of the data over the course of a year or several years would yield much higher rates.

US Drug Czar Lee Brown stated "The report is exactly right. You can't arrest your way out of the drug problem. You can't incarcerate your way out of it, you can't execute your way out of it." Brown's progressive language fails to translate into positive impetus for policy change on the part of the Clinton administration, however. The Department of Justice, for example, ignored its own 1994 report on mandatory minimum sentencing, and now has sided with the Republican-dominated Congress in opposing the Sentencing Commission's downward revision of crack cocaine sentences to the level of powder cocaine (see Legislative Alerts). The crack/powder disparity is a major factor in the racial bias in today's criminal justice system.

"The War on Drugs has decimated my community," says Merry Frank, a social worker from Oakland, CA. "I'm only in the schools one day a week now, because of funding cuts. But if I want to, I can find work in the prisons. What is wrong with this picture?"

Copies of Young Black Americans and the Criminal Justice System can be purchased for $8 from The Sentencing Project, 918 F St. NW, Suite 501, Washington, DC 20004; (202) 628-0871.