WHEN WILL NEW YORK CORRECT ITS MISTAKE?

ALBANY - This week marks the beginning of the 30th year of the injustice in
New York State's penal system from the enactment of the Rockefeller drug
laws. These laws have been roundly criticized as ineffective and wasteful.
Ineffective because they have done little to stem the flow of drugs into
our communities, wasteful because they are responsible for the warehousing
of thousands of New Yorkers in expensive prison cells when community-based
drug treatment would serve them better.

I regret that as chairman of the State Senate Committee on Crime and
Corrections, I was one of the original sponsors of these laws when they
were proposed by Gov. Nelson Rockefeller. The laws were intended to combat
drug abuse by providing such harsh sentences for drug offenses that users
and dealers would be deterred from continued involvement in drugs. After
three decades, it is clear to me and others that this approach has not
worked. Instead, these laws have been responsible for a steep and steady
rise in the number and proportion of prisoners convicted for low-level,
nonviolent drug offenses.

Over the past several years a growing number of political, judicial and
religious leaders - among them the late Cardinal John O'Connor - have
called for a re-examination of the efficacy of these drug sentencing laws.
Gov. George Pataki, to his credit, wants to correct some of the gross
disparities between sentences for drug offenses and sentences for other
nonviolent crimes. But even his most recent proposal would not provide
relief to the great majority of the thousands of nonviolent drug offenders
who are being warehoused in state prisons. To reform these laws, he needs
to put forth a plan that restores to judges their traditional power to
fashion sentences ap propriate to the individual offense, with the option
of diversion to court-supervised, community-based drug treatment. I am
dismayed that the state's district attorneys continue to oppose these
much-needed and humane reforms.

I particularly regret the disproportionate impact the enforcement of these
laws has had on minority communities. Despite the consistency of drug use
among all races and at all socioeconomic levels, over 94 percent of
incarcerated drug offenders in New York prisons are African-American and
Latino. The majority of them, not surprisingly, come from New York's
poorest and most underserved communities. Instead of investing in education
and services that would improve people's lives, we have chosen to invest in
prisons. New York now sends more African-American and Latino men to prison
each year than it graduates from its state colleges and universities.

New York's legislative leaders say they favor reform of the drug laws, but
no reform bill has made it to the floor of either the State Senate or the
Assembly. Meanwhile, thousands who deserve the chance to overcome their
addictions and rejoin their families will be denied the opportunity to do
so. Sometimes in a democracy it may take decades to change bad laws. I
regret my own lack of foresight three decades ago, but surely there can be
no excuse for not understanding the grim consequences of the drug laws now.