"California adopts 'fair sentencing' drug law"
California adopts 'fair sentencing' drug law
by Al Jazeera Staff
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/9/29/california-drug-sentencing.html
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California has enacted legislation that will eliminate sentencing disparities between crack and cocaine possession convictions, a disparity that critics contended placed a disproportionate burden on minorities and amounted to racial discrimination in the states prison system.
California Gov. Jerry Brown on Sunday signed on the California Fair Sentencing Act, the text of which asserts, "To mete out unequal punishment for the same crime (e.g., possession for sale of a particular form of cocaine), is wholly and cruelly unjust.
The legislation was written and introduced by Sen. Holly Mitchell, a California senate Democrat from Los Angeles who also chairs the California Legislative Black Caucus.
We must break the drug-driven cycle of arrest, lock-up, unemployability and re-arrest, said Mitchell in a statement. The law isnt supposed to be a pipeline that disproportionately channels the young, urban and unemployed into jail and joblessness.
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