Fsa Pros And Cons

The Fair Sentencing Act (FSA) is an act initiated by Assistant Senate Majority Leader Dick Durbin, and passed by Congress, to become law on August 3, 2010 (Phillips 2012 ). The FSA intent is to reduce the gap between the amount of crack cocaine and powder cocaine needed to initiate federal criminal penalties from a 100:1 weight ratio to an 18:1 weight ratio. The FSA also eliminates the five-year mandatory minimum sentence for the possession of crack cocaine (Reid 2012). The FSA replaced the controversial Anti-Drug Abuse Act (ADAA) of 1986, that was seen as a racially bias, expensive, and unfair legislation from the Reagan Administration 's “War on Drugs” from the mid 1980s (). The ADAA had become an outdated law that revealed the

Legislation in response to reduce the racial disparity began in the mid-1990s, and culminated in the signing of the FSA. The FSA has been described as improving the fairness of the federal criminal justice system by prominent politicians such as, President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder. However, Some members of Congress are opposed to the Act. Lamar S. Smith (R-TX), the top-ranking Republican on the United States House Committee on the Judiciary, has criticized the act and argued against its passage (Bumgarner

As details of a key compromise measure that did not meet the intended goals became evident, the same groups who had earlier supported the FSA, were now criticizing it. The new law only reduces, but does not eliminate, the sentencing disparity that appears to be directed towards those of the African American community. The criticisms are centered at too many of the low-level drug dealers are being sentenced and incarcerated by the federal criminal justice system (Reid 2012). During this time of accusations by former supporters, the bipartisan cooperation, who were key to the passage of the FSA, created an historic political event. To demonstrate their frustrations they used intense partisan wrangling for a large range of different political issues upon Capitol Hill, and dominated the debate and stymied the proceedings (Gertsman