Rockefeller Drug Reform: Sometimes getting soft on crime makes sense

Chris Glorioso PIX News At Ten

You'll never hear a politician say this, but sometimes getting soft on crime works. The best policy makers know when to hit the accelerator on zero tolerance strategies and when to tap the breaks on policies that just aren't working.

It appears New York State is poised to tear down its controversial Rockefeller Drug laws. They are the harsh rules demanding 8 to 20 year sentences for the mere possession of narcotics. Adopted in 1973, the penalties were a predictable response to a budding urban crack addiction. Today drugs remain a problem, but not in the same way.

I am a street reporter who sees urban blight nearly every story I cover. What I don't see much of anymore are the strung-out addicts that were common on the streets in the 1980s. The primary buyers of today's narcotics are no longer the urban poor . . . they are suburban youth who dash into poor neighborhoods to buy . . . and dash out to get high. These buyers are privileged . ... and therefore have little need to rob and mob in order to satisfy their cravings. Rockefeller lawmakers equated drug possession with violence, and back then it made some sense because drug users in the time of Rockefeller had to steal, assault, and sometimes kill to support their habits. Today, the violence associated with drugs is no less ruthless . . . but it is less connected to addiction.

All of this begs the question: Why has it taken so long for state lawmakers to disassociate drug possession with violence?

The answer is complex but here are a few definite contributors.

1. Upstate Prisons - The northern part of New York State is speckled with prisons and home to more than 23 thousand prison workers. Their representatives have traditionally fought hard (and donated lots of campaign cash) in order to block Rockefeller drug reform. Evidence of their fierce territorial stance came just today, when 2 prison employee unions launched a radio campaign against Governor Paterson's proposed closing of 4 minimum security facilities.

2. It's the Media Stupid! - Time for we journalists to take a little medicine here. Though crime and violence has been on the statistical decline for years, if you pick up your local tabloid or turn on your late news, you're more likely than ever to see a story about murder or mayhem. Perhaps we focus on crime because it's easy to understand, but the unintended result has been a transfer of fear to our viewers and readers. If we spent more time covering urban poverty, perhaps viewers and readers would get a more accurate sense of what creates violence -- a vacuum of economic opportunity, which makes selling drugs (and carrying guns to protect turf) a very plausible occupation.

3. Ineffective Arguments - For years public defenders and advocates for the imprisoned have screamed bloody murder about the disproportionate numbers of minorities serving lengthy sentences for essentially non-violent drug offenses. They aren't wrong about the unseemly statistics. Something smells bad when 1 in 11 African Americans are incarcerated or under correctional control. That said, it's disingenuous to insinuate the Rockefeller drug laws are somehow motivated by racial considerations. It's also a bad strategy to focus on the minor nature of these offenses. It's true, 42% of New York drug offenders were busted for simple possession. They didn't even get caught selling. In some cases offenders spend 8 to 20 years in the big house just for having 1/2 a gram of coke in his or her pocket. That is not a lot of narcotics. Still, it's been proven time and time again, the average law abiding citizen isn't parsing the difference between 1/2 a gram and 1/2 a kilo. They don't get it and they never will. Focusing on drug quantities and criminal circumstances may be a great moral argument . . . .it's just not a good political argument.

A more effective argument in favor of Rockefeller reform lies in a simple cost / benefit analysis. It costs New York about $44,000 to imprison a drug offender for one year. In comparison, it costs about $19,000 to house the same offender in a residential drug treatment facility. Several studies, including a 1997 report by the RAND Corporation show mandatory minimum sentences are 15 times less likely to prevent criminal recidivism than treatment. If treatment and probation are less costly and more effective. ... reasonable people will see it's time for a strategy change.

Now that the NY Assembly has voted abolish most mandatory minimums, it seems lawmakers are persuaded it's time for reform. The bill must be passed by the Senate, but now that the Senate is controlled by Democrats, there is a high probability the Rockefeller rules will be buried for good. The landscape of the urban drug trade has changed. It's only natural the law changes with it.