Even as national immigration reform is stalled out in the face of accusations that it amounts to “amnesty” for illegal immigrants, the risk is rising in Washington of an amnesty for a genuinely dangerous set of convicted lawbreakers — those who have been convicted of possessing or dealing crack cocaine. The United States Sentencing Commission, a federal panel, is considering making retroactive a rule change that equalizes the sentences for crack and powder cocaine. The effect would be to release thousands of convicted crack dealers and users, many of them violent, onto the streets of American cities.

Public comments to the sentencing commission on the proposed retroactivity break down along predictable lines, with the American Civil Liberties Union, George Soros’s Open Society Policy Center, and the National Association of Black Social Workers favoring retroactivity, and President Bush’s Justice Department and the Fraternal Order of Police opposing it. The Fraternal Order of Police warns, “at least 2,500 additional crack dealers will be released into the community either immediately or within the first year of retroactive application. Another 5,000 could be released into the community within twenty-four months of the effective date of the retroactive application… It seems at variance with common sense and good public policy to release en masse crack dealers and drug offenders into our neighborhoods.”

The Justice Department warns, “The unexpected release of 20,000 prisoners or more, who have comparatively high recidivism rates, would jeopardize community safety and threatens to unravel the success we have achieved in removing violent crack offenders from high-crime neighborhoods.” We are prepared to stipulate that the 100:1 weighting penalizing crack cocaine over powder cocaine, established in the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, was excessive. We’d even acknowledge that race may have influenced the disparity. But the way to address this is to toughen penalties for powder cocaine, not to ease them for crack cocaine.

Congress has the power to override the sentencing commission’s recommendations. If the commission recommends setting loose thousands of crack dealers, and a Democrat-controlled Congress fails to override the decision, it’s easy to see the potency of the political issue that would arise. Mayor Giuliani, in response to a question yesterday from our Josh Gerstein, yesterday said letting loose the convicted crack dealers sounded like a really bad idea. The sentencing commissioners don’t have to stand for election, but members of Congress do. Some of them are even seeking higher office.