Before Congress passed the Federal Sentencing Guidelines in 1987, if someone was convicted of a crime in federal court, the judge had sole discretion in determining what the sentence would be. The sentence could range from jail time, a fine, supervised release, or any combination of the three or all three.
Prior to congress establishing the mandatory sentencing laws, federal judges had complete discretion about the sentence to be imposed. However, this led to United States federal judges wielding God like authority over defendant’s lives – this God like authority saw a wide range of sentences for the same crimes. As a result, many people began to push for consistency in sentencing.
In response, Congress passed the Federal Sentencing Guidelines in 1987. These guidelines consider the seriousness of the crime according to justice system and the defendant’s criminal history. A harsh and narrow sentencing range is recommended in light of these factors. It became mandatory for judges to pass a sentence that fell within this range. Federal sentencing guidelines solved the problem of inconsistent sentencing. However, these guidelines where archaic and they truly targeted poor and urban populations in America. For instance, according to the video above, for every white person prosecuted for crack, there are 10 blacks that are prosecuted for crack.
In 1993, while watching a documentary on harsh prison conditions worldwide I abhorred the deplorable conditions that human beings held in some Mexican prisons, Turkish prisons and prisons in Thailand were forced to endure. While watching the documentary, I remember thanking God that I was being held in an American Federal prison. I was then, what convicts called “Fresh fish”. I was “new” to prison, 23 years old, a G on the streets, now branded with an eight digit number with six more years and some change to serve. I was inmate 43018-019.
It didn’t take long, maybe a month before I was asking God for my prayer of thanks back. I was serving an 88 month sentence for unsuccessfully trying to purchase several kilograms of powder cocaine from Powder Springs, Georgia police officers, and Georgia ATF officers in 1992. I should have been relieved that it was not crack, but at the time I had no idea that if I were trying to buy this amount of Crack, that I’d be looking at a mandatory life sentence without parole as opposed to five years for the cocaine and three to five years for the gun that was found under the seat of my 81, Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme.
This had to be the dumbest law in the world I thought, once I found out about the minimum mandatory laws set in place by the Federal Sentencing guidelines of 1987.
On the streets, I was what the underworld of drugs and crime bosses called a “chef”. I was called a chef because I took powder cocaine, placed it in a pyrex like glass container, where I added water and baking soda and cooked it over a stove where I stirred and stirred until the powder cocaine and baking soda melted into the water, afterward I rushed to a sink with the bowl of water and the melted gooey like cocaine baking soda water mix and added drops of cold water while I stirred. As the water cooled the cocaine goo hardened at the bottom of the glass bowl. Moments later the goo would harden into a , then I would remove the cookie like cocaine from the bowl and sit it on a paper towel. Now, my powder cocaine had been melted with baking soda and water and now was crack. The crack now weighed at least fifty-percent more than the powder cocaine had, hence producing fifty percent more crack to be sold and distributed. So, now the crack was fifty percent less pure than the powder cocaine was, yet for the less pure and watered down drug, if convicted of trafficking or possession of crack/cocaine the defendant received 100 to 500 times more time for crack as opposed to it’s purer drug form, cocaine.
The year was 1995. Inmates convicted for crack cocaine all over America were celebrating and preparing to come home in October or November. A congressional vote was to be held for the equalization of crack and cocaine powder quantities for trafficking and possession offenses. There was no way that this resolution would not pass. Cocaine and crack were the same thing, with the exception of baking soda and water. We had a democratic president that elected Janet Reno, a former Miami prosecutor that was said to be sympathetic to the crack/cocaine plight. This was the thinking of inmates and cons all over the country.
Despite charges led by California congresswoman Maxine Waters, Georgia congresswoman Cynthia Mckinney, Georgia congressman John Lewis and a sprinkling of other crack law sympathizers, On September 29, 2005 Congress voted overwhelmingly to uphold the draconian sentencing guidelines for crack offenders.
Three weeks later, less than one week after the historic Million Man March, on October 21, 1995, prison riots all around the country in protest of the September vote. The Atlanta federal prison had not rioted, but the administration placed all cons on lockdown in their cells and the inmates from the Atlanta Federal prison camp were forced to work double shifts across the street inside the penitentiary feeding and maintaining the huge penitentiary complex.
Without any provocation, less than two weeks after the historic Million Man March had seen over 1 million Black men unite under the umbrella of atonement, A black man, standing over six foot tall and dark as night led a team of officers in to the Atlanta federal prison camp where the officers commanded the inmates in each dorm to take off our shirts and lay on our stomachs. I felt like the biggest coward that ever lived lying on my bunk, scared, listening to horrific screams as I heard boots, nightsticks, fists, hammering away at defenseless convicts for no apparent reason other than not moving fast enough for the warden and his Gestapo like prison guards. I do not know if the beating s lasted for an hour or four hours, but when the beatings stopped, several convicts were taken to different hospitals in Atlanta.
The following day, most of the convicts walked around like zombies in disbelief of what happened, and trying to figure out why it happened and what to do about it, and then there were the cons like me. I wanted blood. I cried tears of anger openly when inmates described how the guards beat an elderly 100% blind con. I wanted to die after seeing Mr. Toney, an elderly black men that was beaten and bruised as a result of the unprovoked beatings.
Before the Prison administration cut off the phones and all contact with the oustside world the day following the beatings, a a con got word to Pat Swindall what had transpired the night before. Pat Swindall a former congressman who had become an advocate for prisoners rights after his own incarceration at the Atlanta Penitentiary led the charge to expose what happened. As a result there were local news reports about inmates taken to different hospitals but none of the reports led to justice. The amnesty council was charged to investigate the beatings, but nothing happened.
The night of the beatings and the next morning dozens of convicts were rounded up and taken to 23 hour a day lockdown, solitary confinement, also known as (SHU) Special housing unit. These inmates were held for over two months in harsh inhumane conditions and on December 24, 1995, the prison administration sent a form around for the inmates to sign. This form was a waiver exonerating the prison from any wrongdoing. In return for signing the waiver the inmates would be released back into open population and could see their families immediately. The one or two inmates that did not sign the waiver weren’t heard from again.
Above, watch and listen to Mumia Abu Jamal, a death row inmate talks about the prison industrial complex in America. More than half of US federal prison inmates are in jail for drug trafficking, with the harshest sentences going to crack dealers, most of them African Americans.
The federal prison population increased by 84 percent between 1998 and 2012, due largely to a crackdown on drugs, according to a study by the Bureau of Justice Statistics. America makes up roughly 4.6 percent of the world population, but makes up a staggering 25% of the worlds prison population.
African-American men make up less than 1% of the world population but are over 10% of the worlds prison population.
Either Charles Darwin was correct in his assessment that Blacks are genetically inferior to Whites or there is a serious pandemic level systemic problem that America is facing and defacing.
Jihad S. Uhuru
References
http://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/history-of-federal-sentencing-guidelines.html#sthash.219CPlXF.dpuf
http://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/history-of-federal-sentencing-guidelines.html
http://news.yahoo.com/fight-against-drugs-fills-us-federal-prisons-study-011823300.html;_ylt=AwrC1zH1jVRWQ2MAi03QtDMD;_ylu=X3oDMTByMHZ0NG9yBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwM3BHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzcg–
