COPS NOT SOLD ON SCALING BACK DRUG-FREE ZONES

There is talk of shrinking drug-free school zones because of unfair
social consequences.

But some police officers looking at the issue purely from a
law-enforcement perspective say the only thing lawmakers should
shrink is the possibility of a drug dealer facing less time in prison.

The current law increases penalties for anyone found selling drugs
within 1,000 feet of a school or 500 feet of a park, public building
or public housing.

A proposal from a state commission now being pushed by Gov. Jon S.
Corzine and supported by all 21 county prosecutors in New Jersey
calls for reducing the various zones to 200 feet.

At the same time, the current penalties would increase, but
mandatory sentence minimums would disappear.

The idea is to buttress the drug-free zones, making it less likely
that drug dealers would set up shop within a block or two of a school or park.

Not everyone agrees with the proposal.

"Leave it at 1,000 feet," said Rahway Police Chief John Rodger. "And
increase the penalty in the 200-foot zone."

Rodger is also supportive of a bill sponsored by Assemblymen Peter
Biondi and Christopher Bateman, both R-Somerset, that calls for
increasing penalties in the current 1,000-foot zone.

Should it come to pass, the 200-foot zones would leave at least one
hot spot for drug peddling outside the loop: on Seaman and Remsen
streets in New Brunswick, where many drug arrests are made.

The proposal in effect would expose people selling drugs there to
less prison time, and perhaps none at all depending on their records.

But critics of the current law underscore some glaring facts.

Some 96 percent of the people jailed under the drug-free zone laws
are black or Hispanic, according to the New Jersey Commission to
Review Criminal Sentencing.

Suburban and rural drug dealers, largely white, do not face the same
penalties in the end because they operate in less-dense areas.

One estimate places more than 75 percent of Newark within
overlapping drug-free zones, not including Newark Liberty
International Airport.

New Brunswick is also widely covered by zones.

There are other problems with the law.

While the original intent of protecting school children makes for
good political grist, the concern appears to have been overblown.

Rodger said he does not recall hearing of any drug deals that took
place in or next to school yards.

"It's a laudable goal," Caroline Meuly, assistant Middlesex County
prosecutor, said of the intent behind the law. "But I can't think of
any (criminal case) file where people have sold to children or targeted them."

She has handled drug cases for most of her 30 years as a prosecutor.

While the current law appears to have done little to protect
children, it has certainly toughened the law in drug-plagued neighborhoods.

Veteran street cops and prosecutors who have focused on drug crimes
in Middlesex, Somerset and Union counties say that when the original
law came into play more than a decade ago, the behavior of drug
dealers did not change.

Peddlers go where the customers are used to going. Already exposed
to the risk of going to prison by simply dealing drugs, drug dealers
generally do not worry about the nuances of the law when committing a crime.

"You didn't have a guy with a tape measure out saying, "Hey, I'm two
feet over, I better move.' " said Cpl. Philip Rizzo of the Franklin
Township Police Department. "It's a matter of them going where the
business is."

Still, others say 200-foot zones would be far easier for savvier
drug dealers to avoid.

But the original law did have one effect, Rizzo said: It sent a lot
of people to prison for a few years.

That was not because of the geographic zones put into place, but a
result of the mandatory prison terms included in the law.

Proponents of harsher drug laws say those stiff sentences were
watered down long ago. And some of those same critics grudgingly
agree that it was for a good reason.

The mandatory minimum terms in the original law were three years for
selling cocaine, heroin or other hard drugs, and a year for marijuana.

It meant a drug dealer was nearly assured of doing that much prison
time for selling drugs in the drug-free zones.

But the mandatory minimums also removed any wiggle room for
prosecutors to strike a plea deal, an important tool for problem cases.

With nothing to lose, many defendants rolled the dice in court,
clogging the system.

The enormous backlog of cases led to a different approach: Plea
deals that went below the mandatory minimums were allowed.

Now the mandatory terms of one and three years still apply, but only
if the case goes to trial.

Meuly stressed one important feature of Corzine's proposal, also
included in Biondi and Bateman's bill. By getting rid of mandatory
minimums all together, it gives prosecutors even more leeway in
striking a plea deal, not to mention what it affords judges.

"There's more discretion," she said.

Few people now who plead guilty or are convicted of a drug-free zone
offense escape jail or prison. Most of them, however, do
considerably less time than they did during the early days of the law.

Under the proposal pushed by Corzine, the penalties would increase
from third-degree crimes -- they carry up to a three-to five-year
prison term and a $15,000 fine -- to second-degree crimes -- a five
to 10-year sentence and up to a $150,000 fine.

Second-degree crimes come with a presumption of incarceration even
for first-time offenders. But plea deals sometimes call for those
people to be sentenced as third-degree offenders. And convicts in
New Jersey do a fraction of their terms.

How this would all shake out in court remains to be seen. The upshot
of Corzine's proposal is that fewer people will be caught in the
drug-free-zone dragnet, but those caught and sentenced will likely
still do jail or prison time.

Without mandatory minimums, though, a person sentenced to the full
10 years in prison could expect to serve even less than those
convicted when those mandatory minimums gave the law sharper teeth.

And the rationale for changing the law seems to be lost: Those
convicted under the new proposal would still be mostly black and Hispanic.