THE ENDING OF THE ROCKEFELLER DRUG PENALTIES IS NOT AN OPEN DOOR

If any group of prison inmates has attracted public sympathy, it was the
women whose first brush with the law left them locked up here for 15 years
or more on drug charges.

Few newspaper articles or television reports about New York's
Rockefeller-era drug laws were complete without a visit to the state's only
maximum security prison for women, for an interview with an inmate longing
to go home to her family.

But the much-heralded changes to the drug laws that took effect last month
will free at most 10 of those women, and probably fewer than that, in the
near term. The new law does not allow them to challenge their convictions,
but it does reduce mandatory sentences that critics said were longer than
those meted out to some murderers.

While the new drug laws have pleased some women in the Bedford Hills
Correctional Facility, where all 10 of those women are held, there is also
disappointment here that so few of the prison's 850 inmates will be going home.

One of those likely to be freed, Brenda Prather of Rochester, described the
feelings of her fellow inmates this way: "They're happy that I'm leaving.
But they're crying inside. Because they're missing me and at the same time
they're wishing it was them. It's really sad."

Experts say a range of factors explain why so few women -- at most 1
percent of the female drug-crime inmates -- are likely to benefit from the
change. They include limits to the revisions, the makeup of the prison
population, the focus of the governor's clemency program and the complexity
of the cases that landed some of the women in prison.

Some advocates of prison reform say that by publicizing the most egregious
cases, and focusing on the most seemingly sympathetic prisoners, they may
have inadvertently limited the assistance for the vast majority of women
jailed on drug charges.

"A little, we got hoisted on our own petard," said Robert Gangi, executive
director of the Correctional Association of New York, a privately funded
prison oversight group that has been active in the effort to reform the
Rockefeller-era laws. "It was too handy a tool, too obvious a tool to make
your case."

Women are not representative of the overall prison population; they account
for fewer than 5 percent of those held in New York State prisons, according
to data from the state's Department of Correctional Services. A slightly
larger percentage of low-level drug offenders are women, about 7 percent.

But of the prisoners sentenced on the most serious drug charges, the A-1
felonies, only about 2 percent -- 10 out of 446 -- are women. Their number
was higher a few years ago, but it has been reduced both by Gov. George E.
Pataki's clemency grants and by fairly recent changes that allow top-level
drug prisoners to apply for parole earlier than in the past if they
participate in special programs.

And it is the top-level felons who received the most dramatic help under
the revisions to the drug laws, which Governor Pataki signed in December.

The new legislation shortens the sentences for the most serious drug sale
or possession crimes to between 8 and 25 years, from a mandatory minimum of
15 years to life. The new law also allows prisoners convicted of those
top-level felonies under the old system to apply to courts for resentencing.

But judges may not be sympathetic toward female inmates with, for example,
poor prison records, while in other cases district attorneys may object to
drastic reductions. At least two of the women still in Bedford Hills fled
before their trials; one violated the terms of her parole, and the other
was a parole officer when she was arrested on charges of selling cocaine to
someone who worked in her office.

And some, like Shanaye Hughley, may not have served enough time to win
release even under a reduced sentence. Ms. Hughley, 22, was sentenced last
year to 15 years to life; prosecutors said she profited from a family-run
drug operation in a public housing project in Queens.

She is appealing her conviction. Although she had agreed to talk to a
reporter, prison officials said she was confined to her quarters because of
a rule violation.

Other inmates have such tangled pasts that it was unclear what might happen
if and when they ask for new sentences. One is Severiana Jacquez, whose
case is "an enigma in a jigsaw in a puzzle," said Randy Credico, director
of the William Moses Kunstler Fund for Racial Justice, which plans to
represent her in court.

Ms. Jacquez, 52, was sentenced in absentia to 17 years to life in 1991.
Prosecutors said that more than 11 ounces of cocaine had been found in her
room, along with her daughter, Jennifer, then 4 years old. Ms. Jacquez fled
before the trial and was not arrested until 2001, when she tried to recover
some of the money posted for her bail.

In an interview in a conference room here, Ms. Jacquez insisted in rapid
and vehement Spanish that the drugs were not hers. So why didn't she fight
the charges in court? She said she had received bad legal advice, which
included being told that her witnesses could be arrested and that she
should simply leave the courthouse and never come back.

Another complicating factor was the fate of her daughter, which might
trouble the court. The police said she had endangered the child by leaving
her alone in the home with drugs. She denies that was the case. But when
Ms. Jacquez was arrested in 2001, Jennifer was left to fend for herself, at
age 15. Jennifer said recently that she lived alone in her mother's
apartment, though the electricity was turned off and she was ultimately
evicted.

From prison, Ms. Jacquez eventually found help for her daughter through
Hour Children, a program for the children of women in or released from
prison, which has given Jennifer a job and a place to live. "Even though
she's in there," Jennifer said, "she's been a good mom."

Now that her daughter is doing better, Ms. Jacquez said she was less
despondent; she has been wearing makeup and, this day, coral nail polish.
And the changes in the drug laws have given her hope.

But she has served less than four years. And even if she does get out of
prison, she may be forced to return to the Dominican Republic, which she
left in 1979.

The office of New York City's special narcotics prosecutor said that it had
not yet seen a motion from Ms. Jacquez. The office is reviewing 24 it has
received from eligible inmates, said Magda Gandasegui, a spokewoman.

It has also received more than 30 motions by lower-level inmates who are
not eligible for resentencing, she said, and other prosecutors report
similar requests.

Though they may be disappointed about resentencing, these inmates do
benefit from the new law, said Chauncey G. Parker, director of criminal
justice for the state. It increases the amount of time that can be deducted
from their prison sentences if they participate in education,
drug-treatment and similar programs.

George W. Conaty Jr., who is representing Ms. Prather, the Rochester woman,
said he had already been in touch with the Monroe County district
attorney's office about a resentencing. A lawyer there, Thomas J. Brilbeck,
said the office was working through about 50 resentencing requests,
including Ms. Prather's.

Her case is more straightforward than Ms. Jacquez's. After a trial, she
received 40 years in prison -- later reduced to 20 by an appeals court --
for helping her husband with his drug business. She denies that, but says
she knew he was selling drugs; he pleaded guilty and was released from
prison last May, after 10 years.

During the decade she has been in prison, Ms. Prather, 49, not only got a
high school equivalency degree, she also recently earned a bachelor's
degree in sociology. Though a reporter's visit came as a surprise to her,
she spoke eloquently about her years in prison and her plans for her life
when she returns to Rochester.

She is already packing her things and shipping them home to her five
children, one of whom was only 2 years old when she left for prison. Now he
is 13, and she is trying to get herself ready for a new life with him and
his adult siblings (though not with the man she says got her into all of this).

And she has a list of dishes she wants to cook for her family when she gets
home: lasagna, pork roast, chitterlings, collard greens, macaroni and
cheese and potato salad will all be on the menu, because each of them is a
relative's favorite, she said.

And for dessert, she will ask for her own favorite: peach cobbler, made by
her mother.