DPA is pursuing Real Reform of the Rockefeller Drug Laws. What does this mean?

Real Reform must include the following:

• Reducing sentences for drug offenses. New York’s harsh drug laws are out of step with the rest of the nation; many states, such as California, provide treatment, not incarceration.
• Restoring judicial discretion and ending mandatory minimums for drug offenses.
• Expanding and funding community-based drug treatment programs, including alternatives to incarceration for people convicted of drug offenses. Treatment is cheaper, more humane, and more effective than prison.
• Delivering retroactive sentencing relief to currently incarcerated Rockefeller prisoners
  serving unjustly long sentences.

Whether a Rockefeller Drug Law proposal is called “reform” or “repeal”, if it does not include the four elements above, it is not real.

Enacted in 1973 under Governor Nelson Rockefeller, the Rockefeller Drug Laws mandate extremely harsh prison terms for the possession or sale of relatively small amounts of drugs.  Supposedly intended to target major dealers (kingpins), most of the people incarcerated under these laws are convicted of low-level, nonviolent offenses, and many of them have no prior criminal records. Currently, over 14,000 people are locked up for drug offenses in New York State prisons, representing nearly 22% of the prison population and costing New York taxpayers over half a billion dollars each year.

Over the same period, there has been no significant increase in treatment funding in New York since the early 1980s.

In 2004, the Alliance convened a new coalition—Real Reform New York—and devised a new strategy to win repeal of the Rockefeller Drug Laws. We identified four key elements that would be essential to repealing the laws and enacting effective, humane drug policies in New York:

In late 2004, the DPA-led coalition won the first real reforms of the Rockefeller Drug Laws since their passage in 1973.

The Drug Law Reform Act (A. 08098) enacted moderate sentence reductions; an expansion of “good time” for those incarcerated; significant reform parole practices; and a retroactive relief opportunity for those persons serving the harshest felony sentences (A1 felonies)  under the Rockefeller Drug Laws. The victory was only partial—it was not full repeal of the laws, and represented only a first few steps with many more to go. But after thirty years, “the Rock” had finally been cracked. But it was not real reform.

In 2005, a revision was made that expanded the retroactivity portion of the Drug Law Reform Act, allowing for some people serving A2 sentences to apply for resentencing. Another small step had been taken but it still not enough. We won’t stop until we have won real reform.

Last Updated February 2008