VOICES RISE AGAINST DRUG SENTENCING

PROVIDENCE -- Civil-rights leaders and politicians made a last ditch
effort yesterday to get the General Assembly to override Governor
Carcieri's veto and abolish the state's minimum mandatory drug
sentencing laws.

The big question remains: Will the issue be presented for an override
at Tuesday's special session of the General Assembly?

House Finance Committee Chairman Steven M. Costantino, D-Providence,
said yesterday that the leadership had not committed to an agenda for
the special session. Translation: It's anyone's guess whether the
issue of minimum mandatory drug sentencing will be heard next week.

Rep. Joseph S. Almeida, the Providence Democrat who sponsored the
House version of the bill, said that Carcieri was not listening to the
wants of the people when he vetoed the lawmakers' decision to
eliminate mandatory minimum sentencing for drug crimes.

"Why doesn't he listen to the people," Almeida said. "Isn't this the
house of the people?"

Almeida, Sen. Harold Metts, D-Providence, and other supporters of the
override, including representatives from Direct Action for Rights and
Equality, held a low-key rally on the Smith Street side of the State
House late yesterday afternoon.

Steven Brown, executive director of the Rhode Island Affiliate of the
American Civil Liberties Union, called the nation's war on drugs "a
fiasco" and that Rhode Island should follow the lead of many other
states that have repealed tough mandatory drug laws that were adopted
in the 1980s.

Brown said that every public official, "but our governor," has seen
the light. He said the drug laws have led to overcrowding at the Adult
Correctional Institutions and placed a strain on the state budget.

Since 1988, the state's prison population has more than doubled from
about 1,500 prisoners to more than 3,500.

Metts, the Providence senator, emphasized that Rhode Island residents
need better schools and property tax relief instead of locking more
teenagers up with Draconian drug sentences.

Metts, who is a minister and assistant principal at Central High
School in Providence, said that teenagers make mistakes and should be
given second chances -- not long-term prison sentences.

"As a society, we have to give people a chance to redeem themselves,"
he said. "Instead of more punishment, we need more love."