Earlier this month Seneca Doane put up a diary BREAKING! NY may repeal Rockefeller drug laws! covering the news that the end seemed to be drawing near for the most draconian drug laws in the US.
Now NY Rethugs are up in arms vowing to fight the changes, claiming the revisions were made "in secret" The Buffalo News reports:
Opponents say drug laws were changed in secret
The battle lines have been drawn. Let the political war over the dismantling of the Rockefeller Drug Laws begin.
A political firestorm ignited across the state on Friday, starting with Gov. David A. Paterson and Democratic legislative leaders announcing an agreement to make "sweeping changes" in the Rockefeller Drug Laws, during a late-morning news conference in Albany.
Not long after those cameras were turned off, Republican legislators and law enforcement officials held their own news briefings to counter the Democrats’ claims and cry foul over the way the agreement was hammered out in secret and put into the state budget.
The Rockefeller Drug Laws, enacted in 1973, mandate harsh prison terms even for many nonviolent drug offenders and take some discretion away from judges at sentencing.
The NY Times is also covering the revisions:
Deal on State’s Drug Laws Means Resentencing Pleas and commented on Speaker Sheldon Silver's support:
Overhauling the drug laws has been a mission for many Democrats from New York City, where a disproportionately high rate of people are incarcerated for drug crimes. Assemblyman Jeffrion L. Aubry of Queens has for years led the charge in the Assembly to repeal the laws, and he routinely sponsored legislation on the issue.
But when the Assembly version of the bill was introduced in February, Speaker Sheldon Silver listed himself as a main sponsor of the bill alongside Mr. Aubry and then held a news conference at a rehabilitation center in Albany to call for the legislation’s approval. The support from Mr. Silver surprised some of his colleagues.
Interestingly, the NY Daily News (not a liberal bastion by any means) has an opinion poll online asking online readers to vote:
End of Rockefeller drug laws
What do you think of the decision to eliminate mandatory minimum jail sentences for non-violent drug offenders?
It's a good decision: They need rehab, not jail, and it will reduce prison costs - money the state needs.
It's a bad decision: The last thing we need is more addicts on the streets, and treatment programs cost money, too.
As of this morning 85% of the respondents have voted in favor of the changes.
The Buffalo News story gives this summary of the Democrats position and the proposed reforms:
It costs $45,000 a year to house a low-level, nonviolent drug offender in state prison. Multiply that figure by the 13,000 such offenders imprisoned across the state, and you get a figure of $585 million a year.
The Democratic leaders also plan to use some federal stimulus money to fund many of the drug-treatment slots.
The agreement, announced amid the ongoing battle over a new state budget, calls for several key reforms:
• For nonviolent drug users who are addicted and don’t prey on others, the state would opt for treatment, rather than mandated jail time.
So judges would be allowed to send some addicted first-and second-time drug offenders into approved alcohol and drug-treatment programs — even over the objections of prosecutors.
• Gone would be the mandatory minimums for many drug offenses, a key provision of the Rockefeller Drug Laws that tied the hands of judges in many cases.
The agreement would eliminate mandatory state prison sentences for first-time Class B felony drug offenders and second- time nonviolent offenders. Those people could be sentenced to probation, including drug treatment, or a local jail sentence.
• According to the agreement and Paterson’s comments, hundreds of nonviolent felons already imprisoned under the Rockefeller Drug Laws would be able to apply for relief from their sentences.
• To counter any suspicion that the agreement is soft on the key players in the drug world, the pact calls for a new drug "kingpin" offense that targets those who prey on drug users.
Partnership for Responsible Drug Information has an important fact sheet covering the history and impact and consequences of the drug laws:
Consequences
Prison population
* Between 1980 and 1992, New York's prison population has tripled from about 20,000 to almost 62,000 (in 1973 the state's prison population was approximately 10,000). The State Assembly's Ways and Means Committee projects that the State prison population will grow to 71,300 by the end of the 1998-99 fiscal year, and to 73,100 by the end of 2001-02. Together with the Second Felony Offender Law, also passed in 1973, the Rockefeller Drug Laws have contributed significantly to the overall growth of the NYS prison population.
* The percentage of the prison population incarcerated for drug offenses has been increasing since 1973, the year the Rockefeller Drug Laws were enacted, with particularly sharp increases during the 1980's. These mandatory minimum sentences for drug felonies have increased the percentage of convicted drug offenders who receive prison sentences. As a consequence, the NYS prison population has changed from one in which 9% were serving time for drug felonies (1980) to 32.2% (1997).
* Since 1981, the State has added about 40,000 beds to its prison system, at an average construction cost of $100,000 each, for a total capital expense, not counting debt service, of approximately $4 billion. 7 Despite these increases, the NYS prison system remains severely overcrowded, forcing prison officials to double bunk or double cell approximately 9,000 inmates.
They also document the costs:
Financial costs
* Since the 1982-83 State fiscal year, the share of State General Fund spending going towards the funding of the NYS prison system more than doubled, from approximately 10% to fully 25% of the state's General Fund State Operations Budget.
* As of December 31, 1997, there were 8,880 drug offenders in NYS prisons under the Rockefeller Drug Laws. According the Correctional Association of New York, it costs an estimated $265 million dollars to pay for these prisoners to be incarcerated. There were an additional 12,102 drug offenders in NYS prisons under the Second Felony Offender Law, costing an estimated $360 million per year. There were a total of 22,670 drug offenders in the NYS prison system, representing 33% of the total prison population. In 1980 drug offenses represented only 9% of prison commitments.
* Since 1989 the yearly budget for the State University of New York (SUNY) has dropped from a little more than $1.3 billion to around $800 million. In the same period, annual spending on prisons in New York has increased from a little less than $1 billion to $1.7 billion.
and the racial disparities and impact on women:
Racial disparities
* In 1997, whites constituted 5.3 percent of the total population of drug felons currently in prison in New York; blacks and Latinos constituted 94.2 percent.12 Among whites committed to prison in 1994, 16% were convicted of a drug offense, among blacks 45% were committed for a drug offense, and among Latinos 59% were committed for a drug offense.13 As of 1996, Blacks and Latinos made up 23% of the state's general population, but constituted over 85% of the people indicted for drug felonies, and 85% of its overall prison population.
Effects on women
* Women, especially black and Latina women, are particularly affected by the Rockefeller Drug Laws. Incarcerated women in New York are more likely than men to be drug offenders. In New York in 1990, 61.2% of all female prisoners were committed for a drug offense, compared to 32.2% of men. 15
* The rate of growth in new court commitments between January, 1987 and December, 1989 was approximately three times greater for women than for men, 98.9% for females versus 33.5% for men. In the same time period drug commitments for females rose 211%, and rose 82% for males. Over the same three year period, African-American women on average accounted for 46.1% of the new court commitment population, Latina women 36.3%, and whites 17.5%.
As a person who has worked with addicted populations for years, as well as with movements to bring justice into NY's "Criminal Justice" system, I hope that we will finally get some sanity in what has been a system that has punished addicts, particularly those who are poor and people of color.
I wish that those people who oppose the changes could be sent to prison under those old laws. See how fast they would change their tune.