Pubdate: Mon, 21 Jul 2003
Source: Post-Standard, The (NY)
Copyright: 2003, Syracuse Post-Standard
Contact:  http://www.syracuse.com/poststandard/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/686
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?140 (Rockefeller Drug Laws)

DRUG LAW REFORM: STEP FORWARD, BACK

Gov. George Pataki's latest proposal to reform the overly punitive 
Rockefeller-era drug laws is not the grand step backward that Assembly 
Speaker Sheldon Silver portrays it to be. But it is grandstanding.

Current laws give judges little discretion in sentencing first-time or 
nonviolent offenders to short stays in prison or to drug-treatment programs 
over prosecutors' objections. The result is that many low-level drug users 
and sellers, most of them African-American or Hispanic, sit behind bars for 
years. About 19,000 drug offenders now pack the state prison system.

Pataki's new proposal reflects, with some notable exceptions, a three-way 
understanding he reached with legislative leaders earlier this year to 
overhaul at least part of the law. One of the stickiest issues was the 
drug-treatment option, so everyone agreed to leave it out and tackle it 
separately another time, aides to the governor and Silver say. The 
legislative session, however, ended before they could agree on any 
drug-sentencing bill.

So Silver's squawking about the absence of drug treatment in Pataki's 
proposed bill is just a lot of noise. The governor still remains open to 
negotiating that issue. On the flip side, Pataki's new proposal includes 
some provisions intolerable to Silver that were not part of the original 
"understanding."

Reform of New York's harsh drug-sentencing laws has been delayed for years 
because of just this kind of petty and unnecessary goading from all sides. 
Meaningful negotiations must restart exactly where they ended one month ago.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom