Pubdate: Sun, 19 Nov 2000 Source: Ogdensburg Journal/Advance News (NY) Copyright: 2000 St. Lawrence County Newspapers Corp. Address: P.O. Box 409, Ogdensburg, New York 13669 Website: http://www.ogd.com/ Author: Larry Seguin NOTE: Accepts LTEs by mail only! Must be signed w/phone# REFORM DRUG LAWS To The Editor: New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said he wants to move quickly to reform the harrowing Rockefeller drug laws. Alleviate the mandatory minimums that now send possessors of small amounts of drugs to jail for 15 years or more. "I believe the drug war is a new form of Jim Crow, warehousing black young adults in prison or on probation." ( Wed, 08 Nov 2000). We have reached the point where drug laws are destroying families not drug use. 650% increase in female prisoners in two decades. 70% of them have at least one child under 18. 85.1% of female jail inmates are behind bars for nonviolent offenses. 72% of women in federal prisons and 34% of women in state prisons are incarcerated on drug-related charges. Of those, 65% are first time drug offenders that received five to ten years without parole under mandatory minimum sentencing. Many of the mandatory minimum convictions are for conspiracy. "Conspiracy" charge means no drugs were found on or under the control of the person. For the last decade, the number of people entering prisons for drug offenses has surpassed the number entering for violent crimes. Sources: Village Voice, New York, NY Time 6 Nov. 2000 pg. 107,108 John Irwin, Ph. D., Vincent Schiraldi, and Jason Ziedenberg, America's One Million Nonviolent Prisoners (Washington, DC Justice Policy Institute, March 1999), pgs. 6-7. Greenfield, Lawrence A., and Snell, Tracy L., US Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Women Offenders (Washington, DC US Department of Justice, December 1999), p. 6, Table 15. Minneapolis Star Tribune, Sept 30, 2000, Federal Prison Camp for Women in Pekin, Illinois Larry Seguin Lisbon, New York - --- MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens