"I don't think anyone intended it to be this way, but if you were trying to design a system to incarcerate as many African-American and Latino men as possible, I don't think you could have designed a better system," said state Rep. Michael Lawlor (D-East Haven) about Connecticut's harsh drug laws. Connecticut's prison population almost doubled during the 1990s. At a cost to taxpayers of almost $500 million a year, prison expenses are increasingly unmanageable. Almost 25 percent of Connecticut's state prisoners are drug offenders. More startling is the fact that while black men make up less than 3 percent of Connecticut's population, they account for 47 percent of Connecticut's inmates.

In 2004, DPA was integral in supporting passage of a treatment-instead-of-incarceration bill for people convicted of first- and second-time drug offenses into law as part of  HB 5211, An Act Concerning Prison Overcrowding. The new law included major parole and probation reforms and funding for important treatment and alternative-to-incarceration programs. But one key element was missing in the bill: the equalization of penalties for crack and powder cocaine.

Before 2005, one of the driving forces of racial disparities as they relate to drug offenses were the differences in crack and powder cocaine laws. Connecticut was one of only thirteen states that had separate penalties for possession of different forms of the same drug. Powder cocaine and crack Cocaine are two forms of the same drug. According to Dr. Glen Hanson of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, pharmacologically "crack cocaine is no more harmful than powder cocaine." Disparate Yet beginning in 1987 Connecticut law distinguished cocaine base ("crack") from cocaine powder. The 1987 law set an egregious weight disparity between crack and powder cocaine in order to make them subject to the same sentence. Possession for one half-gram (0.5g) of crack resulted in a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison, while the law tolerated up to 28 grams (28g) of powder cocaine for the same mandatory minimum.

This draconian law disproportionately affected African American communities in the state, unfairly targeting the lower-class, particularly minorities and those living in urban areas. The United States Sentencing Commission's 2002 Report found that nearly 85 percent of persons convicted of crack cocaine penalties were black. The report also found that current laws exaggerate the relative harmfulness of crack cocaine and that prison sentences for crack are roughly five times longer than those for powder cocaine nationwide.

In 2005, in a coordinated effort with our partners at A Better Way Foundation and DPA Connecticut, we ended the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine with bill HB 6975. In addition, the victory, which was largely driven by grassroots organizing pressure, also won $23 million for treatment of cocaine and crack addiction in the state. This critical victory was the first time in many years that the crack/powder cocaine disparity was equalized at the same time that treatment dollars for crack/powder cocaine were significantly increased.