Pubdate: Sat, 29 Dec 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
Author: Kevin Coyne
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?217 (Drug-Free Zones)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Sentencing+Commission
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?159 (Drug Courts)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment)

DRUG WAR, MINUS SIGNS, PERSISTS

AS he drove slowly along the streets he first traveled more than 40 
years ago, when he was still a young parole officer who wished he 
could do more than just check in and move on, David Kerr was looking 
for a sign.

"It's been a while since I've seen one," he said about the signs that 
are meant to mark the 1,000-foot perimeter around all schools within 
which the penalty for dealing drugs is mandatory and more severe than 
elsewhere. "The problem is, there are schools everywhere. 'Entering 
Newark, Drug-Free School Zone,' that's what the signs should say."

But block after block, school after school, none were to be found. 
The "Drug-Free School Zone" signs may be mostly gone here in the 
Central Ward, but their impact persists, and they have surfaced again 
at the center of a policy debate that exposes the wide gulf between 
the two New Jerseys: the one that is dense and urban and heavily 
black and Hispanic; and the one that is not.

"It snares everybody, and really does nothing but put nonviolent 
addicts in jail for a long time, people who should be in treatment 
instead," said Mr. Kerr, 65, who left his state parole job in 1968 
and started what is now the state's oldest and largest drug-treatment 
center, Integrity House, which has 360 always-full beds -- in one 
large building in Secaucus, and 18 smaller ones in Newark -- and a 
waiting list of 450. "It's clear it's just a net that's very biased 
toward any community that has schools close together, like Newark."

It was hard to argue against drug-free school zones when they were 
established in New Jersey as part of a tough antidrug law in 1987. 
Crack was spreading, and the war on drugs was escalating, arming the 
police and prosecutors with new legal weapons. Dealers anywhere near 
schoolchildren? Lock them up.

"Obviously it has a kind of noble ring to it," Mr. Kerr said, as he 
drove past one of the Integrity House properties, a small apartment 
building that the group is renovating to provide beds for 40 women. 
"But a lot of things have had noble rings in the drug war and have 
proven not only to be ineffective but actually damaging to the whole cause."

Like many other people who travel daily through lives and 
neighborhoods that have been broken by drugs, Mr. Kerr has a message 
he would like the rest of the world to understand: Criminals are 
often addicts -- he has been mugged six times, and felt a knife 
against his throat -- but addicts are not always criminals. For 
nonviolent drug offenders, treatment works better and costs less.

"Unfortunately, our whole system has been misled into believing that 
'tough on crime' means more incarceration," he said.

The tide, though, seems to have begun turning. In recent weeks, the 
United States Supreme Court made federal judges less beholden to 
strict sentencing guidelines, and the United States Sentencing 
Commission reduced the sentences of almost 20,000 federal prisoners 
convicted on charges related to crack, which had drawn more severe 
punishment than other drug crimes. And in New Jersey, the debate 
about drug-free school zones surfaced again.

A map of the drug-free zones in Newark looks as if it had been spread 
beneath a leaky roof -- a school (or a public housing complex, 
library, park or museum, which have 500-foot zones) where each drop 
fell, and a creeping damp spot from each, an interlocking series of 
circles that, if you remove the airport, make up more than 
three-quarters of the city. Other dense New Jersey cities are 
similarly covered by such zones.

In 2005, the New Jersey Commission to Review Criminal Sentencing 
found that 96 percent of all those in prison for school-zone offenses 
were black or Hispanic, and recommended that the zones be reduced to 
200 feet and that the penalties within those smaller zones be 
increased. A bill to do that went nowhere in the State Legislature. 
If you wonder why, just picture yourself as a legislator in a white 
suburban district, and then imagine the advertisement an opponent 
could run against you -- shadowy figures lurking outside the school doors.

In October, Gov. Jon S. Corzine asked another panel to look at the 
earlier commission's findings again. This time all 21 of the state's 
prosecutors, as well as the attorney general, endorsed the proposals, 
and also recommended expanding the state's drug court program, which 
emphasizes treatment over prison. "The current school zone law does 
not effectively deter drug activities in urban centers and the 
legislative purpose -- to create a safe haven for children around 
schools -- is thwarted," the report said. But again the proposal has 
stalled in the Legislature.

Before he started driving in search of a sign, Mr. Kerr had spent the 
morning at the monthly breakfast of Bridge to Recovery, a group that 
brings together a variety of people who work with addicts. This 
month's was beneath the basketball backboards in the fellowship hall 
of Bethany Baptist Church, and it had a Sunday-morning feel to it -- 
150 people singing, praising, testifying, joined by a belief that 
addiction is an illness than can be conquered, and that the cities 
can be made whole again.

"People where I live probably figure, well, lock them up," said Mr. 
Kerr, who grew up in Verona and lives in Glen Ridge. "But in Newark 
they're their brothers and sisters and sons and daughters that 
they're locking up. It's a personal matter."

And then he drove around another corner, where the signs were gone, 
but the law, and its consequences, lingered. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake