War on Drugs Among Reasons for Racial Disparity in Iowa Prisons, Expert Says

Ethan appears in court with a supportive family and attorney. He vows to enter a treatment program for his drinking problem and pay restitution. The judge feels confident about Ethan’s chances.

Tyrone goes to court alone. His defense attorney doesn’t appear to know him well and says little on his behalf. Tyrone has a drinking problem, but no access to a treatment program. The judge is certain Tyrone will commit more crimes.

Ethan goes home. Tyrone goes to prison.

Similar scenarios play out regularly in courtrooms and help fuel the racial disparities in Iowa’s prisons, said a national expert on the criminal justice system.

“There are some people who think this is all a result of crime rates, and others who believe this is all a problem of a racist criminal justice system, but wherever you are on the spectrum, this is not an easy situation for the African-American community or for the state as a whole,” Marc Mauer, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Sentencing Project, told a joint Judiciary Committee Tuesday at the State Capitol. A Sentencing Project study last year placed Iowa first in the nation for imprisoning blacks at a rate that is 13.6 times that of whites. Iowa’s population is 2.5 percent black, but its prison population is 25 percent black.

Rep. Wayne Ford (D-Des Moines) is executive director of the nonprofit Urban Dreams, which provides re-entry programs for ex-offenders. Ford brought Mauer and another speaker to Iowa to visit with policymakers and residents to discuss solutions to the state’s high black prison rate — a long-standing problem that has proven difficult to change.

Ford said he helped write legislation during the past 12 years that had improved the plight of blacks, but more must be done. Ford said he’s co-sponsoring legislation with Rep. Ako Abdul-Samad (D-Des Moines) that would help ease the employment restrictions ex-offenders face, certify their fitness to work and would help them obtain jobs, which he called a Certificate of Rehabilitation. Iowa Workforce Development is working on the project and met with large Iowa employers on Tuesday to shape the plan. Iowa is modeling its plan on a similar measure in New York, a state official said. The American Bar Association nationally has expressed support for the certificate programs. Ford is also pushing for state agencies to justify how their spending affects minority communities and for a minority impact statement to accompany changes to laws.

“Eight years ago Iowa was number two for the incarceration rate of black men. My hometown D.C. was number one,” Ford said. “Now, Iowa is number one.”

Ford said the joint committee meeting was “historic” and shows a new energy to an old problem in the state.

“They don’t like being number one,” he said of lawmakers’ feelings about the high black prison rate.

Rep. Wayne Ford (D-Des Moines) and Marc Mauer

Garland Hunt, chairman of the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles, also met with the committee and discussed housing and employment initiatives in Georgia that are helping reduce disparities there. Mauer and Hunt also met with members of a task force organized by Gov. Chet Culver that studied the disparities and made budget recommendations. Mauer also spoke at a public forum Tuesday evening attended by 60 people at Des Moines’ North High School.

Iowa needs to study its sentencing policies and assess whether the state has enough drug treatment programs and alternative programs such as drug court to combat the disparities, Mauer said.

America’s war on drugs has fueled the disproportionate number of blacks in prisons, Mauer said. About 40,000 people were in prison in 1980 for drug offenses, compared with 500,000 people today, he said.

“We don’t want to use prison space for nonviolent offenders,” Mauer said.

Affluent communities tend to treat drug problems as a family health problem, while it’s treated as a criminal justice problem in low-income communities, Mauer said.

“We need to make distinctions between people who are truly drug kingpins and the kid on the street corner selling drugs for his drug problem,” Mauer said.

Racial disparities are found throughout the criminal justice system, Mauer said, adding that the disparities can be worsened by law enforcement practices, prosecutorial discretion, plea agreements, mandatory minimum sentences and lengthy sentences.

“The research generally shows us that putting somebody away for a longer period of time doesn’t necessarily contribute as a deterrent or rehabilitation,” he said.

Sen. Rob Hogg, an attorney from Cedar Rapids, asked Mauer how to reduce recidivism rates and if he had any suggestions “in particular for the African-American community.”

Marc Mauer and Garland Hunt

Mauer pointed to a need for more community-based correctional programs, drug and alcohol treatment programs and early childhood education programs, which Culver’s task force has recommended.

Mauer emphasized that Iowa must look at why it is incarcerating so many nonviolent offenders.

“My sense is that Iowa is somewhat more likely than the national average to incarcerate drug offenders and somewhat less likely to incarcerate violent offenders,” Mauer said.

Iowa and the nation must come to terms with the rising social and financial costs of imprisoning nonviolent offenders, Mauer said.

“We can build prisons or we can build colleges,” Mauer said. “It’s not clear that we can do both anymore.”