II. Recommendations

Human Rights Watch urges public officials in the United States:

To adopt community-based sanctions and other alternatives to incarceration for low-level drug offenders;
To put more resources into substance abuse treatment (making it available in the community and in prison to all who need it) and prevention outreach;
To increase investments in community educational, economic, health, and social programs;
To eliminate mandatory minimum sentences for all drug offenses;
To adopt public health-based strategies to reduce the harms associated with drug abuse;
To conduct a comprehensive analysis of racial disparities in all phases of drug law enforcement-from arrests through incarceration-and to bring stakeholders together to devise ways to ensure drug laws and their enforcement do not disproportionately burden black communities;

To enact legislation that, in accordance with the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, prohibits policies or practices in the criminal justice system that have either

the purpose of restricting the exercise and enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms on the basis of race, color, descent, or national or ethnic origin; or
the effect of restricting the exercise and enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms on the basis of race, color, descent, or national or ethnic origin; and

Pending enactment of such legislation, to eliminate anti-drug policies or practices that have

in violation of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.