A FIRST CUT AT SENTENCING REFORM

Rigid drug laws that penalize some drug dealers convicted for the first
time more severely than the penalties for murderers or rapists have
succeeded in driving up the prison population tenfold. But what the laws
haven't succeeded at doing is limiting the drug trade. Now, with prison
costs soaring, some states are finally backing away from the mandatory
sentencing guidelines and embracing treatment options instead for some drug
defendants, many of whom are addicts. After starting the whole mandatory
sentencing trend 30 years ago, New York took a preliminary but welcome stab
this week at revising its sentencing practices.

About time.

Gov. Nelson Rockefeller spawned a disastrous national trend in the 1970's
with drug laws that required mandatory minimum sentences, including 15
years to life for the most serious drug felony. This policy tied the hands
of judges in cases where stiff sentences were not warranted and encouraged
a few hard-core judges to throw away the keys.

The Rockefeller laws swept away the sensible policy that treated drug
kingpins more severely than small-time peddlers. Under the new arrangement,
an addict selling a small amount of drugs to feed a habit was treated no
differently than a bulk-rate dealer moving drugs into the state by the
truckload.

New York State legislators who were fearful of being cast as "soft on
crime" if they revised the law seem to have had a change of heart after
hearing the stories of first-time offenders who have been separated from
their families by unjust life sentences and forced to watch their children
grow up in prison visiting rooms.

The changes proposed by the Legislature would reduce the maximum sentences
for the most serious offenses and would allow the inmates serving the
longest sentences to seek retroactive reductions. The new policy also
doubles the amounts of drugs that an offender would have to be caught with
to get the harshest penalties for possession crimes - but leaves the weight
thresholds intact for sales and attempted-sales crimes.

The State Legislature has done the easy part. Now it needs to deal with the
core issue: doing away with mandatory minimum sentences, and leaving
sentencing to the discretion of judges.