New crack sentence reductions (but not equalization or retroactivity) reportedly in Congress's year-end lawmaking

I think I am excited — though I might also be more than a bit disappointed — to see reports from a few press sources that Congress may be getting close to passing a version of crack sentencing reform, though apparently not one that will fully equalize powder and crack sentencing terms or that will make new reforms retroactive.  This Reuters piece, healdined "U.S. Senate set to address cocaine sentencing disparity in funding bill," provides these details:

Negotiators in the U.S. Senate have reached a tentative deal to narrow sentencing disparities between crack and powder cocaine and plan to tuck the measure into a bill funding the government, according to four people briefed on the matter....

Under a deal reached by bipartisan negotiators, that [crack/powder weight disparity] would be narrowed to 2.5 to 1, said the people, who requested anonymity to discuss private talks. Congress is likely to attach the measure to a year-end spending bill that lawmakers are currently hashing out, they added.

Legislation that would completely eliminate the sentencing disparity between crack and powder passed in the House of Representatives by a wide margin last year, though it has not advanced in the Senate.

Several Senate Republicans, including Chuck Grassley, the party's highest-ranking member on the Judiciary Committee, have publicly supported a 2.5-to-1 proportion instead. Grassley's office did not respond to a request for comment. Senator Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Senate Democrat and a key actor in cocaine sentencing talks, declined to comment.

The tentative deal does not include retroactive relief for people already convicted of crack-related offenses, which sentencing reform groups had been pushing for, the people said.

The disparities between crack and powder date back to war-on-drugs policies of the 1980s. In 1986, Congress passed a law to establish mandatory minimum sentences for drug trafficking offenses, which treated crack and powder cocaine offenses using a 100-to-1 ratio. Under that formula, a person convicted for selling 5 grams of crack cocaine was treated the same as someone who sold 500 grams of powder cocaine. That proportion was narrowed to 18 to 1 in 2010.

While the people involved in negotiations see the passage of the cocaine sentencing compromise as likely, they warned the deal could still fall apart as Congress races to pass the sweeping, expected $1.7 trillion government funding measure.

I always welcome "half-a-loaf" criminal justice reforms and better than getting nothing done at all.  And I had come to think this Congress was going to get nothing done at all on this front.  So, I am keen to be excited about something seemingly on a path to enactment.

But Senator Grassley's original proposal for a 2.5-1 cocaine sentencing ratio, as detailed here, called for essentially increasing punishment levels for powder cocaine along with loweing punishments for crack cocaine.  Given that US Sentencing Commission data show that there are now nearly three times as many powder cases sentenced in federal courts as crack cases, it is possible that efforts to reduce disparities here (depanding on the particulars) could actually raise sentences overall.  My guess is that any deal being stuck is likely to have a net reduction in expected prison time, but the devil will be in the statutory details.  In addition, how the new US Sentencing Commission responds to any statutory reforms will be most consequential in the long run.