Pubdate: Mon, 12 May 2008
Source: Times, The (Trenton, NJ)
Copyright: 2008 The Times
Contact:  http://www.nj.com/times/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/458
Author: George Amick
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?217 (Drug-Free Zones)

DRUG-FREE ZONES REQUIRE CHANGES

New Jersey's drug-free school zone law wastes money,  damages young 
lives, has racially discriminatory  outcomes and hasn't reduced 
crime. Among those who want  it changed are the governor, the 
attorney general, many  of the state's judges, the prosecutors of all 
21 counties and the mayor of Newark, where its impact has  been 
especially harmful.

But the Legislature won't budge. Bills to amend the law  are bottled 
up in both the Senate and Assembly. A major  reason seems to be the 
fear of many members that  political opponents will target them as 
soft on crime  if they vote for the proposals.

Now the reformers are planning a new strategy that they  hope will 
moderate the law's worst features and still  have a chance of 
overcoming the political obstacles. As  Assembly Majority Leader 
Bonnie Watson Coleman,  D-Ewing, puts it: "If at first you don't succeed..."

The existing law establishes drug-free zones within  1,000 feet of a 
school or school bus and 500 feet of  parks, libraries, museums and 
other public facilities.  Anyone convicted of a drug crime within the 
zone has an  automatic three-year prison term tacked onto his 
penalty. The judge isn't permitted to consider the circumstances.

No one disagrees that the state should throw the book  at drug 
dealers who actually peddle to children. But  the approach taken by 
the school-zone law has been  disastrous, according to a 2005 report 
by the New  Jersey Commission to Review Criminal Sentencing.

The commission, which included law-enforcement  officials, judges, 
lawmakers, public defenders and  prosecutors and other experts, 
concluded: "The  drug-free zone laws, as presently applied, have had 
a devastatingly disproportionate impact on New Jersey's  minority 
community. Of no less importance, the  available evidence strongly 
suggests that the laws as  presently written do not further what the 
Legislature  clearly intended to be their specific purpose: to 
protect certain premises from the primary and secondary  effects of 
the illicit drug trade."

The commission found that there had been no increase in 
drug-distribution offenses immediately outside the  1,000-foot 
perimeter, as would be expected if the law  was working. Instead, 
arrests within the zone rose  steadily over the years. Of the 
school-zone cases the  commission studied, none involved selling 
drugs to  minors -- the group that the law supposedly protects.  Drug 
sales tend to take place at nights and on  weekends, when kids aren't 
in school.

(The height of absurdity was reached when one Jessie  Chambers was 
sentenced to six years in prison for a  cocaine offense because he 
was arrested within 500 feet  of the Fire Museum in New Brunswick. 
The museum is open  only by appointment and the bust took place after 
midnight, when it is unlikely that Chambers was trying  to sell to 
youngsters. But the law mandated three  additional years on the sentence.)

Ninety-six percent of all New Jersey inmates whose most  serious 
offense is a school-zone violation are  African-American or Latino. 
Yet these groups are only  27 percent of New Jersey's population. In 
the whiter  suburbs and rural areas, only two out of 10 
drug-distribution offenses occur within school zones,  the commission 
found. But in the urban areas, which are  blanketed by the forbidden 
zones, eight of 10 do.  "Basically, New Jersey has two different 
punishments  for the same crime," said Drug Policy Alliance New 
Jersey, "with the severity of the punishment being  based on 
geography and, ultimately, on race."

The law not only is ineffective, but wasteful. When the  commission 
filed its report, New Jersey spent about  $31,000 for each prisoner 
jailed for a drug crime. That  figure now is more than $45,000. And 
the long-range  costs of the policy are incalculable when measured in 
the lives of nonviolent offenders whose futures are  shattered by the 
experience of being imprisoned with  hard-core drug dealers and by 
the barriers to honest  employment they encounter when they emerge.

The commission called for reduction of the zones from  1,000 and 500 
feet to 200 feet, while increasing the  penalty for offenses within 
the 200-foot zone (but  without the mandatory minimum). This would 
more closely  link the zones to the schools themselves and produce a 
stronger deterrent -- and greater protection for kids.

But bills to implement those recommendations, sponsored  by Watson 
Coleman and others, went nowhere. Legislators  had made up their 
minds and didn't want to be confused  by the facts. Senate President 
Dick Codey, D-West  Orange, was quoted last year as saying: "I don't 
even want to hear that we're going to change the law to  allow this 
within 1,000 feet of a school."

Now, backed by Gov. Jon Corzine's office and Attorney  General Anne 
Milgram, a compromise is in the works.  Watson Coleman will introduce 
a new bill later this  month that would leave the drug-free zones at 
1,000 and  500 feet, but give the judges back some sentencing 
flexibility. They could weigh such factors as the exact  location of 
the offense, the suspect's record and  whether school was in session 
and kids were present. If  the accused was arrested on school 
property or  possessed a firearm, however, the judge still 
would  have to hand down the three-year minimum sentence.

"Under certain circumstances, giving the judge  discretion not to 
impose a mandatory minimum sentence  makes sense," Watson Coleman 
told me. "Judges should be  allowed to let the sentence fit the 
crime. Mandatory  minimums suggest that our judges aren't capable of 
rendering justice, and that's not what our system is  all about."

Attorney Barnett Hoffman, a retired Middlesex County  judge who was 
forced by the law to send many nonviolent  addicts to prison, chaired 
the 2005 sentencing  commission. I asked him what he thought about 
the compromise. He said he wanted to read Watson Coleman's  bill 
before venturing an opinion, but that from the  description it would 
be an improvement over the way the  law now works.

He's right. The law as it stands does far more harm  than good. Good 
luck to those who are striving to  persuade the Legislature to fix it.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom