Michael,

Your statistics in this post interest me. Could you give me the sources for the data you quoted? It isn’t that I’m challenging your sources, but I would like to read them myself.

Although I have never done any research on this topic, I have seen the problem from another view point. For twenty five years, I was a member of the faculty of Heath and Kinesiology at Texas A&M University. During that time I was also a volunteer patrolman for the College Station, Texas, Police Department.

Somewhat like Pocatello, Bryan/College Station is a university town and there is a great diversity among the residents of the area. A larger percentage of the Bryan/College Station population is African American or Hispanic than in Pocatello, although Caucasians make up a little more than half the population. We certainly arrested whites for drug use, manufacturing, and dealing on a regular basis, but the majority of the people we arrested for those crimes, and who were ultimately convicted, were African Americans and Hispanics. Because of the really diverse nature of the university itself, we also arrested folks from many foreign countries who had come to get their degrees at Texas A&M. I was never aware of any difference in sentencing for these crimes based on race, with the possible exception that many of the foreigners were deported back to the countries of their origin. If there is a serious disparity between sentencing for possession of crack cocaine and powder cocaine, it must be addressed by the legislature and the courts. The police simply enforce the law rather than interpret the law.

After reading your post, it dawned on me immediately, that some of my thinking on this issue comes from an area that is not typical of the country as a whole. I have to admit that the Bryan/College Station area is very unique in many ways.

At the time I left Texas A&M to return to my home in Idaho, there were more African Americans and Hispanics than Whites, who were incarcerated at Huntsville prison. Congressman Charles Rangel has certainly pointed out quite often that this is true nation wide and that he believes that Minorities are given more severe penalties than whites for the same crimes. I don’t believe that I am apathetic to the problems of any group of people in this country, but I don’t believe a lot of what I have heard in the speeches of Congressman Rangel.

Anyway, it was an interesting post. Thanks for making me go back and study the material I have available to see if I need to re-evaluate some of my thinking. I don't know why I didn't see this post when you first wrote it. Maybe I was still hunting.   

Thanks Mbogo. I will check my notes and post details on the blog.

-- Michael