Plan
Pataki:
New
York
Governor
Session
Offers
New
Rockefeller
Reform
Bill
in
Bid
to
Salvage
Session,
Reformers
Still
Not
Impressed
8/3/01
With his earlier half-hearted Rockefeller proposals dead in the water and the Democratic state assembly offering up a slightly more progressive alternative reform bill, Republican Gov. George Pataki last week unveiled -- or at least outlined -- a new, improved Rockefeller reform bill. But given what is known so far about Pataki's latest proposal, neither legislative Democrats nor independent drug reformers are getting too excited about it. Pataki has not yet enshrined his new proposal in legislative language, but according to "aides" and similar sources close to the governor who shared their inside information with the New York Times, the governor's new proposal would, for the first time, allow second-offenders charged with drug dealing to earn greatly reduced sentences by undergoing drug treatment. Pataki's original proposal would have reserved the sentence reduction possibility only for people charged with possession, not sale. It is Class B felons, those who currently receive mandatory minimum sentences of 12 1/2 years and up, whom the governor would now include in the opportunity to reduce sentences by undergoing treatment. Under the new proposal, Pataki aides said, as many 2,800 defendants each year could qualify for reduced sentences. Under his original proposal, only a few hundred defendants would have qualified. But even under Pataki's new proposal, these defendants would be required to do their first nine months of treatment in prison, before spending six months in inpatient treatment and another six months in out-patient treatment. Prison officials would decide whether inmates were ready to move to community-based treatment. The new proposal would also give judges a greater role in deciding which defendants would qualify for treatment and reduced sentences. But it also continues to include proposals sure to excite the opposition of Democrats in the legislature and the growing movement for Rockefeller law reform among the public. Among those measures are an end to parole for all crimes in New York and an increase in certain marijuana penalties. The response from reformers, in the legislature and out, has been less than heartening for the governor. "Any plan without community-based treatment is totally unacceptable," said state Sen. John Dunne (R-Garden City), an advocate of the Rockefeller laws in the 1970s and now one of their most powerful critics. "Is he offering anything new?" Dunne asked Newsday. "The answer is 'no.'" For Nick Eyle of ReconsiDer (http://www.reconsider.org), a statewide drug reform educational organization, Pataki's new proposals are barely worth consideration. "This new proposal is only worth mentioning in that it indicates that Pataki is now aware that his initial proposal was not worth talking about." But neither is Eyle impressed with rival proposals from the Democratic state Assembly. "Neither set of proposals will have any effect on the huge racial imbalance in New York prisoners," he told DRCNet. "You don't correct that imbalance with sentencing reforms, you correct it by ending the drug war," he said. "If all you're doing is trading treatment for prison, or long prison sentences for slightly less long prison sentences, then you are maintaining the drug war paradigm, and perhaps even making it more cost effective." But, said Eyle, "police will still find it easier to arrest inner city black people than suburban white drug users." What Eyle fears most is a compromise between competing Republican and Democratic proposals that removes public pressure for further change without making fundamental reforms. "There is a groundswell for reforming the Rockefeller laws, but most people are not drug policy wonks or sociologists or criminologists, and once you get into the details, their eyes glaze over," he said. "Both sides talk big about how bad these laws are, but we'll be left with some watered down version of one of these bills, and most people will think 'oh, I'm glad they finally changed that law.' But what we'll be left with are minor reforms, which will certainly be an improvement for individuals charged and convicted, but will not do a thing to alleviate racial imbalance or crime and violence in the streets." Robert Gangi of the Correctional Association of New York (http://www.corrassoc.org), a member of the Drop the Rock Coalition to end the Rockefeller laws, is only slightly more upbeat than ReconsiDer's Eyle. In a letter published in the New York Times last week, Gangi wrote that while the governor's reform proposal "apparently offers a treatment option to several thousand drug offenders, the treatment will take place in prison rather than in community-based settings, where the services provided are likely to be less expensive and more effective." Additionally, wrote Gangi, "the plan does not restore judicial authority in all drug cases. Since prosecutors have authority over the indictment process, these exceptions will enable them to maintain control over the outcome of far too many drug cases." For Gangi, "Unless the legislature fully repeals the Rockefeller drug laws, district attorneys will have the ability to undermine the intent of any reform plan." For the legislative factions, the Pataki proposal provides a new starting point for negotiation. But whether any reform bill will pass at this late date remains in doubt. And whether any bill that might pass would be considered by reform activists to be worthy of the name "reform" is equally doubtful. Eyle doesn't think so. "Even if one of these bills passed in its entirety, which is extremely unlikely, they won't make a fundamental difference. The media doesn't cover this, nor does it tell people how extreme US drug policy is. People think what happens in the US is the norm, when actually we're the extremists, along with such company as China, Iran, Malaysia and Thailand."
|
