Rockefeller Drug Laws (RDLs): Focus on treatment rather than punishment

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Today is the day that the hard-fought changes to the Rockefeller-era Drug Laws go into effect, and lawyers for hundreds of low-level drug offenders in New York prisons are preparing petitions for shortened sentences or release. Once among the harshest in the nation, the laws were enacted more than 30 years ago under Governor Nelson Rockefeller, and required mandatory prison terms for a variety of drug crimes.

Critics have long argued that the laws put a disproportionate number of minorities behind bars for years for minor offenses, turning low-level offenders and users into career criminals. The revisions signed into law by Governor Paterson in April give judges discretion to place addicted first-time drug offenders into alcohol and substance abuse treatment, and makes treatment available to the non-violent addicted offenders who commit a range of other crimes.



AP Photo/Mary Altaffer

As the bill was poised to pass the Senate, Paterson told reporters, "Drug abuse is an illness and more and more over the years we're finding that it's a treatable illness." New York Legal Aid Society attorney Bill Givney tells the Associate Press lawyers have about 270 possible New York City cases out of some 1,100 statewide identified by prison officials.

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Photo credit: Getty Images | Gov. David Paterson and lawmakers agreed in April to revise the Rockefeller-era drug laws, once among the harshest in the nation and in the vanguard of a movement more than 30 years ago toward mandatory prison terms. (Sept. 24, 2009)

Hundreds of low-level drug offenders in New York prisons became eligible Wednesday for shortened sentences or release under recent changes in state law.

Gov. David Paterson and lawmakers agreed in April to revise the Rockefeller-era drug laws, once among the harshest in the nation and in the vanguard of a movement more than 30 years ago toward mandatory prison terms. They argued that lower-level offenders would be better served by addiction treatment rather than prison.

"Under the Rockefeller Drug Laws, we did not treat the people who were addicted. We locked them up," Paterson said Wednesday at the Brooklyn Court House. "Families were broken, money was wasted, and we continued to wrestle with a statewide drug problem."

The changes that took effect Wednesday allow resentencing some inmates and give judges discretion to start sending some new offenders to drug treatment or shock programs instead of prison.