Pubdate: Mon, 05 Mar 2001
Source: New York Daily News (NY)
Copyright: 2001 Daily News, L.P.
Contact:  450 W. 33rd St., New York, N.Y. 10001
Website: http://www.nydailynews.com/
Forum: http://www.nydailynews.com/manual/news/e_the_people/e_the_people.htm
Author: Richard A. Brown
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?140 (Rockefeller Drug Laws)
Note: Author is the Queens district attorney and a former president of the 
New York State District Attorneys Association.

ROCKEFELLER DRUG LAWS DON'T NEED CHANGING

There's increasing pressure in Albany this year to amend the so-called 
Rockefeller drug laws. Lost in the flood of headlines is the fact that the 
laws already have undergone significant changes and that further revisions, 
in the view of New York's most experienced prosecutors, may be a step in 
the wrong direction.

In 1979, the Legislature amended the Rockefeller laws to provide a more 
rational sentencing structure. The changes gave judges greater flexibility 
to deal leniently with first offenders involved in small-scale drug 
transactions while providing harsher treatment for repeat offenders and 
large-scale dealers.

In the years since then, Govs. Hugh Carey, Mario Cuomo and George Pataki 
have wisely exercised their clemency power to provide early release for 
offenders who have proven that they are ready to rejoin society.

It is fair to say, therefore, that the drug laws as now written give law 
enforcement professionals the tools they need to fight the drug trade while 
providing a powerful incentive for getting addicted criminals into 
treatment — without the many cases of harsh oversentencing of the original 
Rockefeller laws. We should think long and hard before we tinker with such 
an effective system.

Vigorous enforcement of the drug laws has played a major role in the 
dramatic reduction of crime — particularly violent crime — in our city. 
Drug dealing is big business, and drug dealers use violence to protect 
their turf, intimidate witnesses, rob one another and punish those who 
threaten their livelihood. Having come so far, it would be a serious 
mistake to take away from law enforcement the tools that have let us make 
our streets safe again.

We pay an enormous price from the proliferation of drugs — health care, 
foster care and social services costs — as well as the incredible 
devastation on the human level. We should not forget what our streets were 
like only a few short years ago — open-air drug markets, drive-by 
shootings, children caught in the crossfire of dealers' feuds. These things 
haven't stopped by accident, but because dealers and drug gang members were 
put in prison.

Those who seek so-called reform would have us believe the prisons are 
filled with small-time drug offenders who are locked up for 15 years or 
more. That is not the case. Of the 70,000 offenders in state prison today, 
600 are drug offenders serving sentences of more than 15 years — and with 
very few exceptions, they are in prison because they belong there.

The fact is, most drug offenders are locked up not because they possessed 
small amounts of drugs and were swept up by the Rockefeller laws, but 
because they repeatedly sold drugs to make money, possessed large 
quantities of drugs intended for sale or had prior convictions for violent 
felonies.

Sixty-seven percent of drug felons in state prison today are second-felony 
offenders; 86% were convicted not merely for possession of drugs, but for 
sale or intent to sell.

In cases where drug offenders' crimes are genuinely tied to a substance 
abuse problem, prosecutors divert them into treatment under the successful 
Drug Treatment Alternative to Prison and Drug Court programs.

One of the main reasons those programs are so successful is that addicted 
offenders face mandatory prison time if they don't stay in treatment. Most 
felony drug offenders get probation for their first offense. They could 
volunteer to go into treatment then and there — but they don't. Graduates 
of the programs tell us it is only the credible threat of prison time that 
motivates them to enter — and stay in — treatment.

To the extent that Pataki and others are willing to let courts review 
through the appellate process the rare cases in which first-time offenders 
are serving mandatory sentences of more than 15 years, prosecutors are 
generally supportive.

But to go beyond that — to dismantle drug- and second-felony-offender laws 
that have helped lower the level of violence in our society — would be a 
mistake.
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