Roar Mikalsen - HUMAN RISING - radiofri..

fengsel, og en forverring av leveforholdene deres (målt ut fra innbyggertall, er
det nå over fem ganger så mange sorte i amerikanske fengsler som
sørafrikanerne noen gang hadde under apartheid-regimet).
Det er derfor ingen tvil om at det amerikanske rettsystemet (akkurat som
narkotikalovgivningen) er åpenbart rasistisk i sin funksjon og konsekvens. Dette
kan så absolutt være en ubehagelig erkjennelse å ta til seg, men om man ser
nærmere på narkotikalovgivningens historie er det ingen overraskelse. Doris
Marie Provine:
”*I+n looking at the relationship between race and illicit drugs in historical context, it
becomes obvious that this is not so unusual. Racial minorities have always been the
target of the harshest drug laws. Those who have actively promoted these laws, the
moral entrepreneurs of drug legislation, have relied on racial slurs and allusions to
bolster their arguments for criminal controls. The history of the debate over illicit
drugs thus provides relevant context and a plausible explanation for the current
legislative assault on crack cocaine. (…) Without this backdrop of racism, its hard to
imagine how the United States would have settled so quickly, and so definitively, on a
highly punitive, expensive approach to drug abuse, particularly as more humane, less
costly alternatives have become available. Our history of embedded racism also helps
to explain the public’s otherwise surprising tolerance for failed policies, even in the
face of the tremendous human suffering associated with incarceration.” 127
I det føderale fengselssystemet sitter nå folk gjennomsnittlig 103
måneder — nesten ni år — for å ha forbrutt seg mot cracklovgivningen. Og
dette er altså ikke storforbrytere, noe dommer James Gray sier mer om her:
”For example, under the Rockefeller drug laws in New York, a man named Lawrence V
Cipolione, Jr. was serving a sentence of fifteen years to life for selling 2.34 ounces of
cocaine to an undercover officer. Meanwhile, in the same prison, Amy Fisher was to be
released after serving only four years and ten months for shooting a woman in the
head, and Robert Chambers was serving a five-year sentence for a Central Park
strangling. Under these circumstances, even the New York State Commissioner of
Corrections was quoted as saying that ‘The people doing the big time in the system
really aren’t the people you want doing the big time.’” 128
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