Public Employee Press

Political Action 2009
Coalition drives to change harsh Rocky drug laws

DC 37 political activists and the Drop the Rock coalition of labor unions and grassroots community groups demonstrated in Albany March 10 and handed Gov. David A. Paterson more than 30,000 signatures on petitions calling for reform of the state’s harsh Rockefeller drug laws.

The 36-year-old laws are the nation’s most severe and inflexible, imposing mandatory prison sentences on nonviolent first offenders instead of allowing treatment, and are widely regarded as discriminatory against minorities and the poor.

“It’s time to dismantle the Rockefeller approach, which has proved to be ineffective, and stop locking up people who need rehabilitation,” said DC 37 Political Director Wanda Williams.

In an effort to achieve a compromise between the state Assembly and Senate, Paterson proposed a bill that would give judges discretion to send low-level drug felons to treatment rather than prison on the condition that they plead guilty. The governor’s bill would provide funds to expand treatment programs, but unlike the bill passed in the Assembly, it would not fund treatment in prison or help released offenders with vocational training, housing and programs to stem recidivism.