ROCKEFELLER LAWS EQUAL LOUSY JUSTICE

This Tuesday, an estimated 3,000 people including 50 NYU students rallied
in Albany. Protesters marched from Wilborn Temple to gather at the steps of
the capitol building, where the rally took place.

Speakers ranged from activists and musicians to those who were directly
affected: individuals previously incarcerated for drug offenses and their
children. Afterward, they congregated at the temple for musical and spoken
word performances. The rally was focused on one central idea: repealing the
Rockefeller Drug Laws.

Why? The Rockefeller Drug Laws were created in 1973 by New York Governor
Nelson Rockefeller. One of the laws' harshest penalties mandates 15 years
to life prison sentences for the possession of four ounces of narcotics or
two ounces with the intent to sell. These terms do not allow for any
judiciary discretion with regard to the defendant's history.

In other words, it doesn't matter whether the defendant is a first time
offender, or if they were carrying four ounces or 10 pounds; the penalties
are the same. To put this in perspective, under the Rockefeller Laws, drug
offenders are subject to the same prison terms as murderers, kidnappers and
arsonists. Rapists, child molesters and armed robbers receive shorter
sentences.

The Rockefeller Drug Laws were enacted with the intention of making
communities safer, but this has not happened.

In fact, according to the New York State Criminal Justice Alliance, "drugs
are cheaper and more readily available to the public than they were 20
years ago."

The Rockefeller Drug Laws are a form of institutionalized racism.

Some 94 percent of those in prison for drug offenses are African-American
or Latino, despite the fact that government studies demonstrate that a
majority of drug dealers and drug users are in fact white.

This is largely due to the fact that police target poor urban communities
to enforce drug laws, since drug deals in these areas are more likely to
take place on the street and are therefore more visible to the authorities.
Meanwhile, middle- and upper-class communities avoid dealing with drug law
enforcement because they are able to conduct drug transactions in private
areas like homes or offices, where the police are not present.

Proponents of the Rockefeller Drug Laws claim that they are economically
beneficial to areas in upstate New York, where prisons provide jobs in
rural, primarily white communities. However, the New York State Criminal
Justice Alliance reports that while these upstate communities are home to
nearly all of the drug prisons in the state, over 65 percent of those who
are imprisoned come from a small number of poor New York City communities
like Spanish Harlem and the Bronx.

Furthermore, once a person is incarcerated in an upstate prison, the U.S.
Census Bureau considers them a resident there, consequently reallocating
funds from poor urban communities to these rural, more affluent ones.
Ultimately, these poorer communities are losing not only their loved ones
and their government funds, but also their electoral influence.

It is nearly impossible for those who have been imprisoned to work to
reform these policies, because once a person is convicted under the
Rockefeller Drug Laws, they are no longer given the privilege to vote, even
after they have served their sentence.

The Rockefeller Drug Laws target non-violent, low level offenders because
they are the easiest to prosecute, subsequently fueling prison expansion
and taking away money from more effective programs like drug education and
rehabilitation. According to Drop the Rock, an organization dedicated to
repealing the Rockefeller Drug Laws, the $761 million increase in prison
spending in the last decade coincided with a $615 million decrease in
funding for the State and City Universities of New York.

Contrary to popular belief, rehabilitation is cheaper than incarceration.
New York State spends $2 billion annually to build the prisons that confine
drug offenders, in addition to the $700 million cost of confinement. This
breaks down to roughly $32,000 per inmate per year. In contrast, the
average cost of in-patient drug rehabilitation is $17,000 per year, and
out-patient treatment can cost as little as $2,700 per year. A study done
in 1997 by RAND's Drug Policy Research Center showed that drug
rehabilitation is up to 15 times more effective than incarceration.

In order to reform the racist and wasteful policies perpetuated by the
Rockefeller Drug Laws, we need to repeal the laws entirely.

Ideally, we can restore judiciary discretion in sentencing drug offenders,
and re-examine the cases of those already in prison.

We need to increase funding for drug treatment and education programs so
that drug offenders can be rehabilitated and return to their families and
their communities. Lastly, we need to decrease the unreasonable sentences
for drug offenders so that they are more proportional to the crimes committed.

It is completely irrational that someone convicted for selling two ounces
of cocaine should serve the same sentence as someone convicted of murder.

The Correctional Association's Drop the Rock campaign is working to achieve
these same objectives with their support of Assemblyman Jeffrion Aubrey's
repeal bill.

While lobbying state legislators seems like an obvious approach to
repealing the laws, the efforts in Albany have been repeatedly frustrated.
Legislators' busy schedules leave lobbyists speaking with their assistants,
who are less informed on the issues and therefore less likely to convey an
effective message to the legislators. While the opportunity to lobby
appears to be a potentially valuable tool for social change, it often seems
structured to appease the public more than anything else. However, there
are other ways to speak out against the Rockefeller Drug Laws. Those who
would like to get involved in the Drop the Rock campaign can register to
vote as a Drop the Rock voter, meaning that they pledge to only support
political candidates in favor of repealing the Rockefeller Drug Laws. More
information about this campaign is available at www.droptherock.org. We
must work to repeal these unjust and racist laws.