CONGRESS: END RACIST SENTENCING DISPARITIES NOW

Congress has the power to rectify unjust sentencing disparities that have disproportionately harmed Black communities – and we must ensure they act. From the beginning, the war on drugs has decimated communities of color. Selective enforcement of drug laws, draconian mandatory minimum sentencing laws against crack cocaine, and other blatantly racist policies have sent millions of people to prison. This unjust framework has devastated communities of color for far too long.

Congress can take action immediately to reduce these racist disparities in our criminal legal system – starting by ending federal life sentences for nonviolent offenses and eliminating federal mandatory minimums. Send a message urging them to take these two tangible actions today.

Message Recipients: U.S. Senators

Take Action: End Racist Sentencing Disparities

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Your Message

Subject Reduce racial sentencing disparities now

As your constituent, I urge you to end federal life sentences for nonviolent offenses and eliminate federal mandatory minimums to reduce racial disparities in sentencing.

Message Body

President Richard Nixon declared a “war on drugs” in 1971. Nixon’s domestic policy chief, John Ehrlichman said “We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or Black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities … Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.” By the 1980s, Nixon’s false and racist narrative  was firmly cemented in American rhetoric. Media hysteria about an unsubstantiated crack epidemic among Black communities prompted Congress to pass draconian mandatory minimum sentencing laws against crack cocaine. The war on drugs has sent millions of people to prison for low-level offenses, and seriously eroded our civil liberties and civil rights while costing taxpayers billions of dollars a year, with nothing to show for it except our status as the world’s largest incarcerator.

The Senate companion legislation (S. 79) was introduced by Democratic Senators Cory Booker (NJ) and Dick Durbin (IL) and cosponsored by Republican Senators Rob Portman (OH), Thom Tillis (NC), Rand Paul (KY), Lindsay Graham (SC), Lisa Murkowski (AK), Susan Collins (ME), Cynthia Lummis (WY), Shelly Moore Capito (WV), Jerry Moran (KS), Richard Burr (NC), and Roy Blunt (MO). With a filibuster-proof majority, the time is now for the Senate to pass the EQUAL Act without any amendments and finally eliminate this long-standing and unjust disparity.

Please do all you can to end racist sentencing disparities once and for all.

Sincerely,

[First Name] [Last Name]

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CONGRESS: END RACIST SENTENCING DISPARITIES NOW

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