REVIEW & OUTLOOK

THE ROCKEFELLER DRUG LAWS

No one knows for sure why violent crime has fallen so dramatically
nationwide. Whatever we're doing, it's working. We're not complaining, but
it would be good to know just what it is we're getting right.

The fall in crime is surely due in part to demographics; the current cohort
of males in their peak crime years-teens and early 20s-is small. The fact
that crack is no longer the scourge it was in the late '80s has also played
a part. And the array of get tough-on-crime laws that virtually every state
put into effect during the past decade meant that the core group of repeat
offenders who commit a high proportion of violent crimes are locked away
until the age where they're too old to do damage.

We suppose it's inevitable that too much of a good thing is too much for
some politicians to bear. Why sit still when you can tinker with success?
But it's hard to understand why, in New York state, liberals and
conservatives alike have been calling for drastic revisions to what are
known as the Rockefeller drug laws.

These draconian drug laws, put in place by the late Governor Nelson
Rockefeller in 1973, mandate stiff prison sentences for users and dealers
alike. Someone convicted of possessing as little as four ounces of a drug or
selling as little as two ounces receives a mandatory sentence of 15 years to
life..As opponents of the laws are
fond of pointing out, that's more time in prison than many people end up
serving for violent crimes-even murder.

That's appalling-that is, it would be if in fact those small-time,
nonviolent users actually ended up in the slammer. A study just out from the
state commissioner of criminal justice tells a different story. In 1996, 87%
of the 22,000 people in jail in New York for drug crimes were in for selling
drugs or intent to sell; of the 13% doing time for possession, 76% were
arrested for selling drugs and pleaded down to possession.

The study further shows that most convicted first-time drug offenders end up
on probation or in treatment. Nonviolent offenders who are in prison on drug
charges only are overwhelmingly there because they have long histories of
drug convictions and of violating court directives. "You really have to earn
your way into state prison," says Commissioner Katherine Lapp. The study
shows that "it's very difficult the first time around or even the second
time around to end up in prison."

Behind these numbers lies a remarkable story about drug treatment and the
men and women who have been able to shake their addictions and claim a
productive place in society. One of the places that nonviolent, repeat drug
offenders end up is DTAP programs, shorthand for Drug Treatment Alternatives
to Prison. These long-term, residential treatment programs have a rate of
success that is "astounding," says Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes,
who started the first program in 1990. The success rate for program
graduates is close to 90%.

The cost differential between DTAP and prison is also astounding. D.A. Hynes
says it costs between $18,000 and $20,000 a year to keep a drug offender in
his program, compared with $69,000 a year in prison. Treatment typically
lasts two years.

The key to getting addicts into DTAP and other treatment programs is the
Rockefeller drug laws. Nonviolent offenders charged with felony possession
are given a choice between the stiff sentence mandated by the Rockefeller
drug laws or entering a treatment program. If they complete the program, the
charges are dropped; if they drop out, they go to jail for a very long time.
Guess which option many choose.

"These tough laws have diverted lots of people into treatment who wouldn't
otherwise go into treatment," says Dr. Mitchell Rosenthal, head of Phoenix
House, a national drug treatment center based in Manhattan. "DTAP couldn't
work if we didn't have the hammer of mandatory sentencing, " says D.A. Hynes.

Both men, it should be noted, argue that the Rockefeller drug laws are too
stringent; they support a plan by the state's chief judge to give judges a
lot more leeway in sentencing drug offenders. Governor Pataki also supports
revisions that would give judges more flexibility in sentencing, but in
return he is demanding an end to parole, a troubled institution that needs a
study as illuminating as the one these drug laws received; th~ Assembly
Democrats aren't going along. And so it looks like the Rockefeller drug laws
are going to be with New Yorkers
a while longer. If that means more addicts are going to be forced into
treatment, maybe that's not such a bad thing. Just look at the crime numbers.