Attorney General Merrick Garland has issued two memos that provide guidance to correct a decades-long disparity in how people convicted for crack cocaine possession were punished versus the sentencing of those carrying powder cocaine, NBC News reports.
Sentences for 500 grams of powder cocaine were equal to those issued to people carrying just 28 grams of crack: a five-year minimum. A study by a non-partisan think tank found that in general, prison sentences for crack cocaine were general 18 to 100 times that of a similar amount of powder cocaine.
In one of the memos, Garland noted the disparity in sentencing guidelines that led to “higher penalties for crack cocaine offenses are not necessary to achieve (and actually undermine) our law enforcement priorities, as there are other tools more appropriately tailored to that end.”