DRUG WAR TERMED A FAILURE

Bill Would Roll Back Mandatory Sentencing

PROVIDENCE -- Residents, civil-rights advocates and community leaders
held a news conference at the State House yesterday to announce
widespread support for legislation that would eliminate mandatory
minimum drug sentences and allow judges more discretion in doling out
punishment.

The event, which was hosted by Direct Action for Rights & Equality
(DARE), coincided with the introduction this week of House and Senate
bills by Rep. Joseph Almeida and Sen. Harold Metts.

"For over 30 years, this country and this state have been fighting an
ill-conceived war against drugs," Steven Brown, executive director of
the Rhode Island Affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union,
told the audience.

The fight consisted of poorly conceived laws, such as mandatory
minimum sentences, that were designed to reduce drug use and distribution.

However, Brown said, enforcement of the laws has been arbitrary and
capricious -- consistent only in the resulting discriminatory effect
that they have had on people of color and the poor.

Even though blacks and Hispanics are not more predisposed to use
drugs than whites, and the poor are not more predisposed to use drugs
than the rich, those being sentenced under mandatory minimum laws are
overwhelmingly black and Hispanic and poor.

"It is time for enforcement of this nature to stop," Brown said.

Sara Mersha, director of DARE, said state legislators followed a
national trend when they enacted the "get tough on crime" measures in
the 1980s, taking away judicial discretion in sentencing drug offenders.

The two-tiered system, spelled out in the Rhode Island Uniform
Controlled Substances Act, imposes a mandatory minimum sentence of 10
years, with up to 50 years, for anyone convicted of possessing,
selling or manufacturing 1 kilogram of marijuana or 1 ounce of
cocaine or heroin.

The second level imposes a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years,
and a maximum life sentence, for anyone convicted of possessing,
selling or manufacturing more than 5 kilograms of marijuana or more
than 1 kilo of cocaine or heroin.

But, 20 years later, "national sentiment has changed and there is
general consensus that the war on drugs is a failure: longer
sentences and mandatory minimums have done little to reduce drug use
and availability," Mersha said. "Too much money has been spent and
too many lives have been ruined"

Statistics compiled by the Family Life Center, an agency that helps
former inmates reenter the community, found that the state's prison
population increased from about 1,500 in 1988, just before mandatory
minimums were instituted, to more than 3,500 currently, or more than double.

Joseph Benton, of the Family Life Center, said a study done by his
agency also found that Rhode Island had the most severe mandatory
minimum sentences in New England.

For example, while other states have 5-year minimum sentences, Rhode
Island's shortest sentence is 10 years. It means, Benton said, that
someone caught possessing marijuana in Rhode Island would receive a
sentence twice as long as someone caught in possession of cocaine in
Connecticut or Massachusetts.

Also, the study found, Rhode Island is the only state in New England
and in other regions where offenders could receive a life sentence
for possessing or selling marijuana.

Just as the prison population has doubled, so, too, has the spending
for housing a larger population.

When examining incarceration rates, the study found that while
blacks, whites and Hispanics use drugs at similar rates, black Rhode
Islanders are incarcerated for drug-related offenses 30 times the
rate of whites.

Also, Hispanics are incarcerated for drug-related crimes at 11.5
times the rate of whites.

While the mandatory minimum laws may have been well-intended, Benton
said, they have failed, been costly and discriminatory and have
destroyed lives.

"Judicial discretion and treatment works better," Benton said, noting
that the American Bar Association has asked for the repeal of
mandatory minimum sentencing.

The study also found that Rhode Island, per capita, has one of the
nation's worse drug problems, and the highest percentage of people
who need treatment but aren't receiving it.

Mersha said that the $35,000 to $36,000 per year that the state
spends to house an inmate could be better spent getting treatment for
drug users.

Representative Almeida, who vowed to tirelessly advocate for the
legislation, said it did not make sense that Rhode Island was more
"apt to lock somebody up, rather than give them thehelp they need."

Neil Corkery, executive director of the Drug & Alcohol Treatment
Association or Rhode Island, said, "It may make some people feel good
to put people away who have committed a crime."

But, he said, instead of curtailing the drug problem, the state is
now left with a larger number of offenders who come out of prison
having had no treatment, no rehabilitation and very little hope.