New York May Repeal Rockefeller Drug Laws
According to the NYT:
The Assembly approved legislation, 96 to 46, that would restore judges’ discretion in many lower-level drug-possession crimes that are felonies by eliminating laws that require a prosecutor’s consent before judges can send certain felons to drug treatment instead of prison.
In addition, the measure would permit about 2,000 prisoners to apply to have their sentences reduced.
There’s more detail at StoptheDrugwar.org:
More than 42% of Rockefeller law prisoners — more than 5,000 people — are doing hard time for simple drug possession, many of them convicted of the lowest level drug felonies, which involve only small amounts of drugs. For instance, a half-gram of cocaine can earn a Class D felony charge. As of last month, 1,098 people were imprisoned for that offense.
The mass imprisonment of drug offenders comes at a substantial cost to Empire State taxpayers. According to the Correctional Association of New York, the state spends $525 million a year to incarcerate drug offenders and has spent $1.5 billion on building prisons to house them.
“More than 35 years after the Rockefeller drug laws were enacted, it is clear that these laws mandating imprisonment for even lower-level offenders have failed to effectively combat drug abuse or reduce the incidence of violent crime,” said Assembly leader Rep. Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) before the vote Wednesday. “This legislation restores humanity to drug policy here in New York. It expands the sentencing options available to judges, without endangering the public. Judges are in the best position to know who is deserving of prison and who is not. State prison and mandatory prison sentences are not the magic bullets to address drug abuse and its attendant problems; restoring judicial discretion is the solution.”
These Rockefeller statues have been used as the model fro drug laws all over the US. And, as noted, they are largely a failure. Non-violent, small amount offenders more often need options for treatment rather than hard time. This repeal, while not a perfect solution, addresses some of the worst excesses of the Rockefeller laws — including the idiotic costs of incarceration and the costs of permanently damaging the long term ability of non-violent offenders to get back to regular society.
California is relooking at its drug laws (and the 3 strikes laws) also as a way to reduce its prison costs. I’m sure they aren’t the only ones to make this review. Imprisoning nonviolent offenders is very expensive and not especially utilitarian. Funds spent to lock these folks up are much better used to bolster public education or for drug treatment options. Delaware has a large number of people in prison per capita, and much of that has to do with the failures of the War on Drugs. I’m hoping that while Gov. Markell is looking for ways to address our budget crisis that he’s looking at ways to reduce the numbers of nonviolent offenders being sent to Delaware’s expensive prisons.
Tags: War on Drugs
the war on drugs is a huge failure followed by the war on terror
Has anyone seen any real light at the end of the tunnel on this issue?
Drug addiction was turned from a medical problem to a (profitable) criminal enterprise thanks to legislators who never considered the side effect of their panaceas.
Reason seems to have been replaced by emotion.
Total legalization is not the answer but the elimination of some draconian laws might make a difference.
Cops can make an easy bust for mere possession and a few joints can be said to have an enormous ‘street value’. Such arrests can help some meet their arrest quotas but is society really harmed?
The worst thing to be said about pot is that the mass importation and sale creates revenues for some nasty criminal enterprises. There are other drugs that are addictive and deadly.
Perhaps if our legislators whould gather on a vessel outside of our territorial limits and do some bong hits while watching Reefer Madness on large screens we might have some meaningful reform.
It would be a fun event for all.
Terror is a problem and the Achille Lauro incident was a hint of much worse to come.
It seems quite ironic that the economic downturn is what it takes to get these states to address the incarceration problem. I hope they fix these laws!
The law enforcement establishment should have no problem with this as long as their property seizures aren’t threatened.
What is a problem is the incarceration for essentially victimless crimes.
Is society really served?
Has hell frozen over? I think I may agree with AD about something. I agree, AD, I don’t think society is served by putting a lot of nonviolent offenders behind bars.
There is new legislation ready to go right here in Delaware. The Delaware Crime Prevention and Rehabilitation Act is being floated among community groups, church/social groups. Everyone who has read this legislation supports it.
It took 3 years to do the research and create the bill, which is based on the California model. We know that Supreme Court judges are sick and tired of the mandatory sentencing laws, they want to judge on a case by case basis. There are 7million people incarcerated in America. (I know many of you believe the number to be 2.5). The research proves otherwise. One wonders why this good government legislation wouldnt be enacted. Consider this. There are some who believe changing these drug laws and mandatory sentencing provisions, will cut jobs! Yes, we now must deal with the Delaware Prison Industrial complex. When you look at how many people one case may involve, from police, to magistrates, lawyers, judges, parole/probation, prison guards , transportaion, food services, medical services etc, thats a lot of people who have jobs, by keeping thousands of going to jail. The end result is that Delaware has so many ex felons unable to obtain employment, especially in these economic downturns, the revolving door back to prison is built into the prison industrial complex.
We have people in jail for non violent crimes, in jails with real criminals. They go in addicted, they come out addicted. This bill would end that by placing all drug users into a drug court. The drug court assigns them to a drug treatment center. During the intake process it will determine what else is needed besides drug treatment so when they get out, and go into the parole/probation program where they continue to be monitored, they wont have a felony, therefore an opportunity to get a job and keep it.
It costs $40,000 a year to house an inmate in our prisons. It cost $3000 for a drug treatment program. All treatment would be delivered by a state certified program so we don’t have “fly by night organizations” claiming to be drug treatment programs bilking the system with no professional treatment staff. But clients seeing professional help who can comes out with a higher degress of success.
Some in Delaware are talking about building another prison at the cost of $9M! These are the idiots who would like to see more Delawareans in jail, feeding the prison industrial complex.
We need a new approach. The only approach is a medical one. Drug treatment not jail. In these prisons people are subjected to all kinds of mersa, and flesh eating diseases, adding to an overburdened health care system. At some point all will come back into society, so do we want someone who is still addicted, and could have a disease entering the community, or someone who was treated appropriately and on their way to a different lifestyle.
Once we have enough of the community behind this bill, we will seek a sponsor. This legislation has been provided to the Hope Commission, to Markell, his cabinet members and legislators. Community groups, church groups are all supporting it, so we hope to have a change in Delaware coming soon.
Best of all is once offendors have been treated, done their time, paid their fines , remained clean they can get their rights back within one year.
Some background on how the Rockefeller drug laws came into effect. When Rockefeller was running for President, the GOP thought he was too moderate, too liberal. They had to toughen up his image.
They came up with these draconian drug laws which were then adopted in almost every state in the nation. Prior to these laws taking effect, prisons at least tried to train prisoners some skill in prison, that all fell through the cracks as more and more prisoners were delivered, hence the building of more an more prisons, and now we have the United States Prison Industrial Complex.
Liz has a point. I think the question that you are missing is a simple one. Why is it a felony in the first place? Art hit the nail on the head. We criminalized a medical problem. Make it a misdemeanor for small personal consumption then we still have the right to mandate treatment, keep them from sensitive jobs, and keep it away from our children. Yet we won’t bankrupt ourselves keeping them in job training to be a better criminal (prison). We could also use it for leverage still to get people to talk about dealers.
The ironic truth is that we may enforce the law more if it is not so draconian. Dealers are a different story.
We should also decriminalize pot for adults. There is no scientific basis for its being classified with heroin and cocaine. We should tax and regulate it.
At the end of the day those of us who choose to take drugs are paying a great deal of money and take a great deal of legal and health risk to do so. There is little hope that and sentencing guidelines will stop anything as it does not impact demand.
What our current law enforcement approach does do is create a massive profit motivation (on both sides of the equation) and helps an underground economy thrive here in the US.
Go to the Netherlands – see how they handle it. They have an open society and do not criminalize drugs the same way (though violence is treated more strictly than here). They have one of the lowest violent crime rates on the continent and lower heroin addiction rates than either Great Britain or France – and the stuff is everywhere. The difference is that their main weapon in combating drugs is treatment for those with problems and sensible penalties for hard drug possession.
I have known hundreds of people who smoked pot with no ill effect. My only experience with users of injected drugs was gained as being an EMT. There is a difference. The few coke snorters I knew were pains to all who were around them.
One size does not fit all.
Should we allow treatment to provide an escape hatch for major dealers in the more dangerous drugs? Most low-level dealers are supporting their own addiction may well benefit from treatment rather than incarceration. Go up the food chain and there is another story.
The more severe treatment of crack offenders vice the users of the powdered form may pass as a form of covert racism but it reflects society. Those who snort lines of coke may be throwing their lives away but tend to be more affluent and are not about to rob delivery men for money for crack. The difference in punishment reflects the collateral damage associated with the substance.
There are no instant answers but a lot of questions that need to be asked of our elected officials.
Rockefeller was a rather kinky guy and the details of his demise should have made the tabloids.
Harding, JFK, and Clinton were rather pedestrian in their sexual exploits by comparison.
Rocky did leave his mistress rather well rewarded.
I’m with U.I. Can’t quite get my balance this morning. I’m agreeing with Art and Liz and Not Brian. Addiction should not be a felony. One-size-fits-all drug laws are stupid. Mandatory sentencing might play well with with police, but it places an unfair burden on the taxpayers and the offenders are being thrown on the trash-heap of society.
If you have ever collected signatures on a petition down on Rodney Square you will know that about half of the people down there waiting for the buses are former felons. It is an amazing experience talking to these folks about why they can’t vote or sign political petitions. Or find jobs. It will wrench your heart.
Rebecca –
Totally agree with your comment on drug felons. A lot of these people made a mistake that will cost them for their entire lives. And if their socio-economic status had been different many would have had a lawyer to get them out of the worst of it.
Also, don’t be so sure all police are on the other side of this. I know some who are not. My father was in the NJ State Police for 28 years… he has been to the Netherlands with me twice… he talked to the cops in the Red Light district of Amsterdam a couple of times… he was facinated by how different the focus was….
It is true that not all police see the Drug war as futile. But I do think that those who are seeing this (and the same people) day in, day out can certainly articulate the futility. But there is this group and one of its more visible spokespeople. It will take some time, I think, but I do think that governments are at least coming to understand that the costs of maintaining the drug war policy are completely unsustainable.