Drop the Rock Empowerment Day was held Saturday. The event was organized by the Correctional Association of New York, one of the leading advocates of reforming the state's Rockefeller-era drug laws, which are among the harshest in America. A host of volunteers collected thousands of signatures on petitions calling for change of the archaic statutes. The group hopes to gather 35,000 names by the end of the year to present to state legislators. The question is whether the lawmakers will pay attention. [continues 383 words]
Exercising the Right to Vote Is Important Part of Prisoner Rehabilitation, but Over 5 Million Convicted Felons Are Barred From Doing So. A coalition of concerned citizens in Alabama is shaking up the GOP with their goal of registering voters in the most unlikely of places - -- state prisons. A voter registration drive led last week by Rev. Kenny Glasgow, began registering prisoners to vote, a right guaranteed under Alabama's State Constitution, so they could cast absentee ballots. The drive was originally embraced by Richard Allen, the commissioner of corrections in Alabama, but it was stopped when he received a letter on Thursday from the Alabama Republican Party opposing the drive. Its chairman, Mike Hubbard, told Mr. Allen that the party supports voter registration but not for prisoners, citing a need for safeguards against possible voter fraud. [continues 602 words]
Fame Buys a Free Pass While Others Bear Brunt of Harsh Laws To the Editor: A celebrity is arrested and charged with fourth-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, a Class C felony. If you pick up People magazine, watch "E.T." or have friends who follow celebrity gossip, you know how this story is going to end. Steven Page will, according to the band's Web site, be "heading into the studio later this year to record a new album." [continues 179 words]
Several years ago I was walking home to my Manhattan apartment from Columbia University, just having delivered a lecture on New York state's notorious "Rockefeller Drug Laws." The state's mandatory-minimum sentencing laws had thrown tens of thousands of nonviolent drug offenders into state prisons with violent convicts. In my lecture I had called for more generous prisoner reentry programs, the restoration of felons' voting rights, increased educational programs inside prisons, and a restoration of judges' sentencing authority. A white administrator from another local university, a woman, who I had always judged to be fairly conservative and probably a Republican, had attended my lecture and was walking along with me to go to the subway. She told me that my lecture about the "prison industrial complex" had been a real "eye opener." The fact that two million Americans were imprisoned, she expressed, was a "real scandal." [continues 943 words]
In March 1965, at the height of his popularity and power, President Johnson launched a major offensive against crime, which he called a "malignant enemy in America." Although violent crime had declined markedly since the Great Depression, it was starting to surge under Johnson's watch, and his conservative critics-following the lead of Barry Goldwater, who had made fighting crime a centerpiece of his failed but galvanizing presidential bid-were eager to pounce. To outflank them, LBJ ordered his attorney general Nicholas Katzenbach to chair a blue-ribbon commission to draft a national crime strategy. "I will not be satisfied," the President warned, borrowing from Goldwater's paternalistic playbook, "until every woman and child in this Nation can walk any street, enjoy any park . . . and live in any community at any time of the day or night without fear of being harmed." He declared "a thorough and effective war against crime." [continues 4686 words]
For alcohol prohibition, our US version, it was about 13 years. Between mafia crime, poisonings from adulterated beverages, and the dropping age at which people were becoming alcoholics, Americans decided that the "Noble Experiment" -- whether it should actually be regarded as noble or not -- was a bad idea. And they ended it. New York State did its part 75 years ago today, ratifying the 21st amendment to repeal the 18th amendment, bringing the Constitution one state closer to being restored. It took another half a year, until December 5th, to get the 36 states on the board that were needed at the time to get the job done. But Americans of the '30s recognized the failure of the prohibition experiment, and they took action by enacting legalization of alcohol. [continues 588 words]
Last night, political comedian and long-time activist, Randy Credico was enjoying a cool summer evening with his friends barbecuing in the backyard of his Gay Street home in New York City's West Village. After hearing a loud commotion in the street, Credico stepped out of his front door and witnessed New York City police officers arresting a couple of young adults for allegedly smoking marijuana. Credico got into a shouting match with the cops. One of the officers turned out to have a history with Credico and was involved in a similar incident some months back when Credico documented the arrest of some other young adults accused of simple marijuana possession. Following the verbal altercation with officers, Credico was arrested and charged with resisting arrest and making obscene gestures. [continues 411 words]
With Key Medical Marijuana Ballot Initiatives Likely to Pass, and a More Pot-Friendly Majority in Congress, There Is Room for Optimism. You have to hand it to the Republican National Committee: Those guys really know how to pick the wrong fight. John McCain, already running against the public opinion grain in support of the Iraq War and Bush tax cuts, received no help from headquarters last month when the RNC made medical marijuana a campaign issue. After Barack Obama told an Oregon weekly that he would end federal raids on medical marijuana users and providers in states with compassionate use laws, the RNC pounced. Obama's position, said an RNC statement, "reveals that (he) doesn't have the experience necessary to do the job of President (and) lacks the judgment to carry out the most basic functions of the Executive Branch." Because the Supreme Court has ruled that federal drug laws trump state drug laws, the RNC reasons that halting federal raids would be tantamount to ignoring the law. [continues 1519 words]
All that's left is the rock and roll. Sex? Drugs? What else can David Paterson cop to now? That he played guitar in a garage band when he was growing up in Hempstead, N.Y.? Don't bet against it. New York's new governor is the perfect age. He graduated from Hempstead High in 1971. Back in the day, he says, he smoked marijuana occasionally and, at 22 or 23, tried cocaine "a couple of times." At that point in his life, he'd have been a senior history major at Columbia -- or perhaps a recent graduate. It would be a couple of years before he decided he wanted to go to law school. [continues 553 words]
Enacted in 1973, New York's Rockefeller drug laws penalized some first-time drug offenders more severely than murderers. Named for Nelson Rockefeller, who was governor at the time, the laws tied the hands of judges and mandated lengthy sentences for young offenders who often deserved a second chance. The laws, which were supposed to ensnare "kingpins," have filled the prisons with drug addicts who would have been better dealt with through treatment programs. They also undermined faith in the fairness of the justice system by singling out poor and minority offenders while exempting wealthy ones. [continues 275 words]
PRINCETON - When members of two Princeton neighborhoods became convinced this spring that drug dealers were living and working next door, they called the Southern Regional Drug and Violent Crimes Task Force. For weeks, officers with the undercover unit and other Mercer County law enforcement agencies kept their eyes on the Old Beckley Road and Lower Bell Street houses in question, stopping motorists as they left and tracing potential drug-trafficking patterns. In early April, they arrested two suspects accused of a variety of drug and weapons charges. [continues 1499 words]
WESTON - A mighty, mighty warrior for truth and justice stopped by the library the other night for a sparsely attended talk sponsored by the Weston Democratic Town Committee. His subject, as ever, was "Ending the War on Drugs." Retired Detective Lt. Jack A. Cole served 26 years with the New Jersey State Police, including 12 years undercover with the Narcotic Bureau. He figures he was personally responsible for putting over 1,000 non-violent drug offenders in jail, a fact he is not proud of now. Gradually he came to see the errors of the "War on Drugs" and to regret his role in it. [continues 1319 words]
New York governors come and go (some more swiftly than others). State lawmakers tend to hang around longer, but most of them eventually move on as well. For true endurance, the statutes known as the Rockefeller-era drug laws are hard to beat. The same may be said about attempts to scrap those laws, which came into being in 1973, so long ago that disco was just beginning to be hot. Nelson A. Rockefeller was governor then. Drug criminals had New York by the throat in one of the city's periodic heart-of-darkness phases. Rockefeller wanted to show he could be tough as nails with dope dealers. The result was statutes that eternally bear his name in common idiom. Their essence was to send drug felons to prison for very long stretches, with sentences made mandatory and leniency rendered unacceptable even for first-time offenders. [continues 659 words]
Time to End Rockefeller Drug Laws Thirty-five years ago today, Gov. Nelson Rockefeller signed the drug laws that bear his name, setting the state on a course of costly and ineffective mandatory prison time for non-violent drug offenders. Since then, the war on drugs has waxed and waned, the crack epidemic has come and gone, crime has soared and subsided, and through it all Rockefeller's laws have endured. It's time for a change. With New York facing big deficits and a shaky economy, the folly of spending more than $32,000 a year to imprison each of about 6,000 people sentenced annually for non-violent drug crimes is an indulgence taxpayers can no longer afford. Gov. David Paterson is opposed to the status quo, so the table may finally be set for meaningful reform. [continues 181 words]
As spectators booed and cheered, defense attorneys, prosecutors, treatment providers and reformers testified before state lawmakers yesterday about the ongoing battle of approaches in enforcing drug laws and rehabilitating offenders. The daylong hearing in Manhattan marked to the day the 35th anniversary of the enactment of the Rockefeller Drug Laws, a set of mandatory sentencing measures that made New York one of the most punitive states. Speakers urged the panel to build on amendments to the laws in 2004 and 2005, with most calling for a more public-health based approach over a criminal justice strategy. Those alterations lifted the most draconian elements of the laws, such as lifetime incarceration for the most severe offenses. [continues 302 words]
In the late 1980s Rob Kampia was a carefree, third-year science major at Penn State University, who admits to inhaling now and then. "I was on a dual track of occasionally smoking pot and studying really hard so that I could do something in physics or astronomy," he says. In a strained voice he relays the event that changed his life: "I was arrested for growing my own marijuana in April of 1989 and sentenced to three months in county jail." When he got out he had several felony charges on his record. "One for cultivation, an attempt to distribute and a couple of conspiracy charges as a result of that one incident," he says, recalling the disbelief he felt at the time. [continues 1056 words]
All that's left is the rock and roll. Sex? Drugs? What else can David Paterson cop to now? That he played guitar in a garage band when he was growing up in Hempstead? Don't bet against it. New York's new governor is the perfect age. He graduated from Hempstead High in 1971. Back in the day, he says, he smoked marijuana occasionally and, at 22 or 23, tried cocaine "a couple of times." At that point in his life, he'd have been a senior history major at Columbia - or perhaps a recent graduate. It would be a couple of years before he decided he wanted to go to law school. [continues 553 words]
Does former President Bill Clinton want to become a drug policy reform advocate? On its face, it would seem that way, following Clinton's keynote speech at the University of Pennsylvania commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Kerner Commission report that addressed the causes of racial disturbances in the 1960s. Clinton admitted his administration's failure to end the racial disparities in sentencing of powder and crack cocaine offenses. He said he regretted not doing more about it, and that he would be prepared to spend a significant portion of his life trying to make amends. [continues 389 words]
Josie Green, 66, showed up Saturday at a Hempstead Village forum on reforming the state's drug laws because she is tired of the fallout from the drug trade in her community. "I've seen families fall apart, mothers sent away and grandmothers left to care for kids, and young people given unjustly long sentences," said Green, who lives in the village. "It's a bad situation, and to this day, it isn't any better." The forum was part of the "Drop the Rock" campaign, a statewide effort to repeal the Rockefeller drug laws. Along with about 50 others -- community organizers, residents and pastors -- Green called Saturday for the repeal of the drug laws, among the toughest in the country. [continues 273 words]
I read with mixed emotions DeWayne Wickham's insightful piece on former president Bill Clinton's "regret" for supporting draconian crack cocaine sentencing measures in the 1990s ("Bill Clinton admits 'regret' on crack cocaine sentencing," The Forum, Tuesday). It is encouraging that Clinton is taking responsibility for the racist impact his drug policies had. Clinton stood by while the outrageous 100-to-1 crack sentencing disparity sent drastically increasing numbers of people to prison for non-violent drug offenses. The majority of families devastated by these inhumane drug sentences have been black, despite equivalent rates of drug use among blacks and whites. [continues 123 words]
