State prisons, which vary enormously with the laws and practices of each state, hold most of these offenders, perhaps a quarter of the total prison population. But in the federal prison system more than half of those held have been convicted of non-violent crimes such as smuggling and selling drugs. We cannot know for sure how many of our neighbors use illegal drugs, what drugs they use or in what quantities. But nothing that I read denies the evenhanded racial distribution of usage. Arrest and imprisonment are anything but evenhanded.
Black people are as much as fifteen times more likely than whites to be arrested for cocaine usage.
The sentences they suffer are hugely disproportionate as well. The one relevant variable between races is that crack has been the form of cocaine most popular in the inner city. Some argue that crack cocaine is more powerful and destructive than cocaine in powder. And while cocaine is the most extreme example of differential treatment, the racial disproportion remains in every category of illegal usage and dealing. There are records by which to measure arrest and imprisonment.