Q&A: DAVID SOARES

David Soares, district attorney-elect of Albany, spoke with the Editorial
Board about his campaign to soften the state's Rockefeller drug laws.

Question: What got you so interested in Rockefeller drug law reform?

Answer: Watching people coming into the system, mostly young people of
African-American and Hispanic descent, only to see them replaced by new and
younger faces over the years.

Why shouldn't people involved in drugs, even for small amounts, go to
prison for significant periods of time? Wasn't 15 years to life an
appropriate sentence?

I'm a prosecutor. I'm not saying we should slap people on the wrist. But I
can't see the logic of putting away a person for more time for a small
amount of drugs than we would for rape.

If the problem is the endless supply of drug traffickers, how does reducing
sentences lessen the commerce?

I apply market principles to the so-called war on drugs. We know it doesn't
work to walk down the street and tell drug dealers or people who are
contemplating drug dealing, "15 to life." It hasn't reduced the traffic. We
should shift the resources to the men and women fighting crime to go after
the bigger fish.

Do the sentence reductions that the Legislature just enacted go far enough?

You have to be cautious, and so let's give it some time and see how it
works and then explore the sentences. But I do think that we're off to a
very good start.

It's a start toward what? How does this make the war on drugs more effective?

You have to look at the costs of incarcerating people for very long periods
of time under the original law and realize there is an opportunity for
savings. With that money, we could place people in treatment or provide
more resources for law enforcement to go after those bringing poison into
our communities.

As the prison population declines, do you believe you'll see more money put
toward the programs you envision, or will legislators simply cut the
correction budget?

One can only hope those resources will be shifted to address the problem.
We need access to treatment, and we need the resources in the district
attorney's office to make sure that the people we offer treatment to are
the people who, in fact, need treatment.

You ran, in effect, on a platform of reducing the sentences. Typically,
when district attorneys run, it's on a get-tough, not a get-soft program.
There are limits to a prosecutor's ability to be a social worker.

That's the label that follows me around, but I don't consider myself a
social worker. I consider myself a sensible person. It's about getting the
job done and making sure that what we're doing in the courtroom affects the
community and the lives of the people we serve.