Reduced New York Drug Sentences

[realisticphish]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/08/nyregion/08albany.html?oref=login&th
ALBANY, Dec. 7 - After years of false starts, state lawmakers voted Tuesday evening to reduce the steep mandatory prison sentences given to people convicted of drug crimes in New York State, sanctions considered among the most severe in the nation.

The push to soften the so-called Rockefeller drug laws came after a nearly decade-long campaign to ease the drug penalties instituted in the 1970's that put some low-level first-time drug offenders behind bars for sentences ranging from 15 years to life.

Under the changes passed Tuesday, which Gov. George E. Pataki said he would sign, the sentence for those same offenders would be reduced to 8 to 20 years in prison. The law will allow more than 400 inmates serving lengthy prison terms on those top counts to apply to judges to get out of jail early.

<snip>
----------------
I...uh...GUESS that's an improvement...


:hippie: The Incorrigible Democrat

[Downtown Hound]

1. A step forward, but nearly far enough

Still allows for too many non-violent drug offenders to be locked up for years on end, just for less years than before.

[ooglymoogly]

2. rokefeller...may he rot in hell

[Lenape85]

3. It's ironic he was a very conservative republican...

...now, when you hear the term "Rockefeller Republican", you think of an Olympia Snowe type