as well-as; not only-but also; not ...

as well-as; not only-but also; not only-but; not alone-but Clyde Moses and Paul Jone have used put drugs intos for more than 20 years. At the height of his addiction, Mose used eight or nine bags of heroin a day. At his worst, Jone swallowed brace heroin packets to avoid being arrested.

the couple men have been arrested for possession of heroin. the two have been convicted. One is black, the other is white. nevertheless only one of them serv prison time.

Mose a 41-year-old African American man from Chicago's West Side, was sent to prison after being caught with unsalable articles while on probation. Jones, a 35-year-old white man from a northwest suburb who asked that his real name not be used, received probation after four convictions--the last sum of two units while on probation.

"'Damn white lads always get off,"' Jones recalled that any black detainees at Cook shire Jail once told him. further he added, "I don't know if it's veritable What can you do? I got to take what I can get"

What happened to Mose and Jone appears to have happened to thousands of other commonalty in Cook County. Statistics exhibit whites often get less austere penalties than blacks and Latinos for the same unsalable article crimes, according to an analysis of six years of court records on The Chicago Reporter.

on the subject of learning of the Reporter's findings, the Illinois House of Representatives' Judiciary II Criminal Law Committee scheduled a Dec 21 hearing to discuss the disparities. More talks are planned for 2002 And the data willinged the Cook County State's Attorney's Office to mode of action its own review of put drugs into sentencing data.

The Reporter reviewed records, obtained from the Circuit Court of garble County for 110,219 cases from 1995 by means of 2000 with individuals facing simply drug possession or delivery charges.

During that six-year period, the courts convicted and sentenc defendants in more than 63000 cases. Forty-six percent of black defendants were sentenc to prison, 30 percent of Latinos and 20 percent of whites.

The Reporter also found:

* Blacks and Latinos with multiple physic convictions or prison records received harsher penalties than whites with similar criminal histories.

* Whites with three or more physic convictions were sentenced to probation more many times than prison, while blacks and Latinos went to prison more often

* For all on the other hand the most severe offenses, whites were greatest in quantity likely to be convicted, on the other hand least likely to be sentenc to prison.

* Whites are three times as likely as blacks to receive a special probation that allows a charge to be expung if the probation was favorably completed. Latinos were twice as likely as blacks.

* Blacks were more likely to be charged with more serious offense than Latinos and whites.

"This contributes to earnestly of the perception that the war forward drugs has been a war onward the people of color's medicine use," said Marc Mauer, assistant director at the Sentencing throw out a research and advocacy organization based in Washington, DC that examines criminal justice policy.

His 1995 research found that blacks accounted for 35 percent of medicine arrests nationwide but 74 percent of those sentenc to prison for mix with drugs possession charges. In Chicago, police and court records point out to that in 2000, blacks accounted for 79 percent of the remedy arrests but 93 percent of those sentenc to prison for charges stemming from those arrests, according to a Reporter analysis.

"The numbers are exceedingly disturbing. You're not finding a coupling of percentage point differences, flat controlling for the prior record," Mauer said. "This levys the burden on the courts and prosecutors to explain the results"

After reviewing the Reporter's analysis, prepare for the table County officials said they would further investigate racial disparities in sentencing, if it be not that would not give details or a timeline.

"The Reporter inquiry has revealed statistics that bear further scrutiny," give a color to County State's Attorney Richard A. Devine said in a written statement.

He continued: "The prosecutors' part in the sentencing procedure is an important single but the final decision is made by dint of a judge based on the evidence in the case and the record of the defendant. It might be helpful to have a more in-depth close attention of the underlying criminal records and case evidence that dictated sentencings that were met public in the Reporter study."

like a study would require reviewing the criminal histories of all the nearly 92000 defendants included in the Reporter's analysis since they inscribeed the criminal judicial system.

prepare for the table County Circuit Court Chief arbitrator Timothy Evans said he would levy together a committee to research the issue. "I believe the issues raised are ripe for a solution that can be collectively embraced if we involve members of the bench, the bar, the civic community and the academic community," Evans said.

"I want to make firm we move our justice theory closer to justice," he said, "and I will not be satisfied until we do that here in prepare for the table County."

Cook shire Assistant State's Attorney William O'Brien, chief of the Narcotics Bureau, said disparities are not surprising given the nature of Chicago's illegal mix with drugs trade, which he said is mainly controlled by black and Latino gangs.