Criminal Justice Responses to Crack

The past few years have seen heightened concern about the spread of the use and sale of smokable cocaine (“crack”) and its effects on crime and public order. In particular, the criminal justice system has responded to these concerns with an unprecedented emphasis on apprehending street drug dealers and users in record numbers, overwhelming the courts and jails of many urban jurisdictions. The public perception that crack is a particularly dangerous and addictive drug, together with the growth of an unregulated street drug market, media accounts of crack-related violence, and the lack of treatment facilities, has placed pressure on the system to process crack arrests differently from other drug arrests. This study of the response of the New York City criminal justice system to the early stages of the crack “epidemic” is based on analyses of the 3,403 crack arrests that occurred between August and October 1986, including the characteristics of defendants, charges, case dispositions, and sentences. The comparison sample consisted of powdered cocaine arrests from 1983 to 1984. The results suggest that crack cases had a higher probability of pretrial detention, felony indictment, and jail sentence. Logit analyses of lower court disposition and the bail decision indicated that being charged with a crack-related offense was a relatively strong determinant of these case decisions compared to such traditional factors as prior criminal record.