While many are praising the recent reform
of the Rockefeller drug laws, many more are not. Although the reform
bill will reduce the most severe mandatory sentences for drug offenses,
according to data from the New York State Department of Correctional
Services, the reform change will affect only 446 prisoners, while
15,600 felons imprisoned under the drug law will remain imprisoned.
Even with the proposed revisions, New York still has the harshest
drug-sentencing laws in the country. According to Donna Lieberman,
executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, "Absent
structural changes to the Rockefeller Drug Laws -- which requires
restoring to judges the authority to order treatment as an alternative
to sentencing -- we will not have meaningful reform." According to the
NYCLU the new law will leave in place sentencing procedures that give
prosecutors authority to charge and sentence. Judges have no discretion
over sentencing. Prosecutors can demand a sentence of 10 years for an
addict with no criminal record who is induced by a dealer to deliver
four ounces of a drug to a buyer. A judge who believes justice -- and
the public interest -- are better served by ordering the defendant into
treatment instead of prison is prevented from doing so. Even if the
judge had the discretion to choose treatment, nowhere in the reform
bill is there funding for drug treatment programs. The new law will
also do little or nothing to reform the harsh sentences imposed on B
felons, those charged with lesser drug offenses, the NYCLU said. [more]
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