Pubdate: Mon, 02 May 2005
Source: Berkshire Eagle, The (Pittsfield, MA)
Copyright: 2005 New England Newspapers, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.berkshireeagle.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/897
Author: Eoin Higgins
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v05/n615/a06.html?56337

AN UNJUST LAW THAT NEEDS CHANGING

When I read Vincent Lee's letter ("Double standards in sentencing," April 
15) I was struck by a number of statements. The first is the seeming 
assumption that because police in Pittsfield lay traps for drug dealers by 
waiting for them to cross into a school zone, and this has continued for 
the last decade or so, Great Barrington residents should suck it up and 
allow unfitting sentences to be passed on to them by the same judges in the 
same system. Perhaps if Mr. Lee understood the value of changing rules for 
the better, he would realize that the actions, however belated, of Great 
Barrington residents to change this law which specifically targets 
non-violent offenders are beneficial to all and not subject to sour grapes 
from another town up north which preferred to do nothing about it.

Second, and perhaps most offensive, is the statement that if Pittsfield 
residents were whiter and richer, the residents of a now assumed elitist 
Southern Berkshire coalition would have been up in arms. Mr. Lee is 
obscuring the issue of this law and its necessity to be changed by 
suggesting that Barrington residents don't care what happens in Pittsfield 
because of race or money. At the end of his letter, Mr. Lee throws us a 
real zinger by equating the mandatory sentences of drugs to those of 
firearms. The comparison holds no weight when you consider the issue of 
nonviolent crimes versus violent crimes. It's a lot easier to kill someone 
if you're holding a gun than it is when wielding a bag of marijuana. 
Different crime, different time. Mr. Lee and all residents of Berkshire 
County who wish for fair sentencing should join the petition started in 
Great Barrington. The issue affects the whole community.

EOIN HIGGINS Olympia, Wa., April 22, 2005 The writer is a former resident 
of Great Barrington.
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