3 chapters across the catalog
Joe Biden's 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act established a 100-to-1 sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine. While Biden later claimed to have fought this disparity, he was a primary architect of the mandatory minimums that disproportionately targeted street-level offenders in black communities.
Department of Justice data from 2002 shows that for possession of less than 25 grams, powder cocaine offenders received an average of 14 months, while crack cocaine offenders received 65 months. This disparity highlights the systemic impact of the drug laws championed by Joe Biden in the 1980s.
In 2010, President Barack Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act, which reduced the crack-to-powder cocaine sentencing ratio from 100-to-1 to 18-to-1. Critics argue that maintaining any disparity at all was a failure of the administration and a concession to the private prison industry's need for a "pipeline" of inmates.
