Pubdate: Thu, 25 Oct 2007 Source: New York Times (NY) Copyright: 2007 The New York Times Company Contact: http://www.nytimes.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298 Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?140 (Rockefeller Drug Laws) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?244 (Sentencing - United States) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?199 (Mandatory Minimum Sentencing) RATIONAL SENTENCING New York sparked a disastrous national trend during the 1970s with laws that often penalized first-time drug felons more severely than rapists or murderers. Imitated throughout the country, New York's so-called Rockefeller laws drove up the prison population tenfold and cost the states a fortune, but did nothing to curb the drug trade. Worse still, they tied the hands of judges -- and destroyed countless young lives -- by requiring long prison terms in cases where leniency and drug treatment were clearly warranted. New York has made incremental changes to the Rockefeller laws in recent years, but has stopped short of restoring judicial discretion. Gov. Eliot Spitzer seemed to be pushing in that direction this year when he appointed a commission to study the range of state sentencing practices. The commission's preliminary report contains many valuable recommendations for fixing the sentencing system as a whole. But the superficial treatment given the Rockefeller laws has raised fears among fair-sentencing advocates that the commission intends to duck the issue in its final report, due next spring. That cannot be allowed to happen. Voters deserve a thorough airing of this issue and a full menu of options for reforming the most draconian drug laws the country has yet seen. The report rightly calls for ending New York's byzantine system of "indeterminate sentencing," under which a judge imposes a minimum and a maximum sentence and the Parole Board decides when to release an offender. It calls for sentencing certain nonviolent offenders to community-based treatment instead of prison. It also recommends restoring prison-based educational and training programs, which have been shown to cut recidivism by giving inmates marketable skills. Most important, the report calls for the state to establish a permanent, independent sentencing commission to advise legislators. Already working in several states, such commissions have independence and statutory authority. At their best, they help legislatures make rational decisions and avoid disastrous policies that have failed elsewhere, like New York. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake