Political Skullduggery

A new study shows that minorities are the ones who are mainly given the mandatory harsh penalties for being caught with contraband in drug-free school zones, which extend in some areas for 27 square miles around each school.

Many entire cities are considered drug-free school zones.

During the crack cocaine epidemic of the 1980s, dozens of states drew wide circles around schools and called them "drug-free zones" to keep dealers away from children. But a national report released yesterday said the zones have failed to achieve that goal.

A report by the Justice Policy Institute, a liberal research organization that advocates for alternatives to incarceration, said the zones have led to a far different result: a disproportionately high number of drug convictions and harsh sentences for black and Latino citizens who live who live near urban schools and other protected areas.

In some cases, entire cities are covered by the zones, leading to mandatory sentences even for first-time offenders caught possessing minuscule amounts of drugs far from any school...

Alabama's zones cover 27 square miles each, almost half the size of one of its largest cities, Tuscaloosa. Convictions within the zones often come with fixed sentences that are added to whatever jail time is imposed for the crime committed...

The New Jersey study included maps of Newark, Jersey City and Camden, dense urban areas dominated by minorities and smothered by drug zones. But the largely white Mansfield Township, suburban and spread out, was marked by three small circles, where more minorities live...

In New Jersey, 96 percent of inmates serving harsher zone sentences are either black or Latino...

In Massachusetts, racial disparities in arrests and convictions were also tied to the zones. Eighty percent of people convicted with enhanced penalties were minorities, according to the Justice Policy Institute report.