Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America

Chapter 4 addresses sentencing practices for drug and gun crimes in DC Forman starts with an anecdote about his time as a public defender, describing his concerns for a client, Tasha Willis, who faced a maximum sentence of 60 years for selling a $10 bag of heroin to an undercover police officer. The prosecution offered Tasha a five-year sentence in exchange for a guilty plea. Forman advised Tasha to take it, but she refused, claiming she needed drug rehabilitation, not prison. The prosecutor dropped the charges.

The anecdote about Tasha serves as a point of departure for Forman’s discussion of tough-on-crime policies. In the early 1980s, DC politicians lengthened criminal sentencing for drug and gun crimes. Former police chief Jefferson and a Black councilman named John Ray spearheaded this policy change, which established a precedent for punitive sentencing nationwide. The call for reform grew as drug use and violence surged. Dissatisfied with law enforcement’s response, Black communities took protection into their own hands by buying guard dogs and forming armed citizen patrol groups. Black communities also complained about the lenient court system. They called for an end to “revolving door justice” (127), lobbying to keep more people in jail before trial and for longer prison sentences.