Drug crime racial bias goes beyond crack sentences

It goes to the actual likelihood of jail time.

Black men? Twelve times more likely to do jail time for drug offenses than white men. Black women? Five times more likely than whites.

Ridiculous. Of course, many poor blacks, or other minorities, get public defenders who, I guess, are too incompetent or too lazy to get them rehab time.

And, because poorer minorities are more likely to have theft convictions to support their habits (something the story doesn’t delve into), they’ve got longer criminal records. The same would be true of poorer whites, too.

I’d like to see a similar study controlled for income. I don’t doubt that even with that, blacks still are more likely to do time in drug cases than whites, though.