However, after thirty years, we have little basis for evaluating the design of the
Rockefeller drug laws, other than the same speculative reasoning and wishful thinking that led the Commission and the legislature to adopt this structure in the first place.
With built-in incentives for police and prosecutors to concentrate on low-level users and with racial discrimination an inevitability, the
Rockefeller drug laws are the ancestor of just about every regressive criminal justice policy since enacted--three-strikes laws, federal sentencing guidelines and zero-tolerance police sweeps.
Perhaps the
Rockefeller drug laws and other strict penalization structures began as an attempt to rule with a firm hand; indeed, Governor Rockefeller began by authoring drug rehabilitation programs, but soon submitted to political pressure for a more punitive approach.
"When the
Rockefeller drug laws changed, thousands of people came home from jail," Simmons says.
Meanwhile, Democrats in New York dismantled the draconian
Rockefeller Drug Laws first passed in the 1970s, which disproportionately affected racial and ethnic minorities and handed out extreme sentences for low-level drug offenses.
government needs a reason to go to war, such as the now infamous weapons of mass destruction believed to be held by then Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, the notorious "war on drugs" led to the development of stiff sentencing guidelines laid out in the
Rockefeller Drug Laws. These laws required long mandatory minimum sentences for simply possessing a small amount of substances such as crack, cocaine, heroin, and even marijuana.
I conclude with a discussion of how this examination of the
Rockefeller Drug Laws contributes to our broader understanding of punitive policy's political utility and the specific ways such legislation empowered conservative politicians and rationalized neo-liberal political projects.
Our Drugs War (8.00pm) Angus Macqueen visits New York, where he follows 28-year-old Thomas Winston's campaign against the
Rockefeller drug laws, where people selling or possessing small quantities are given a mandatory sentence equivalent to second degree murder.
Eventually, the
Rockefeller Drug Laws became one of the most important vehicles for incarcerating African Americans and Latinos in the state of New York.
At the state level, New York last year repealed most of its remaining mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses, first imposed by the
Rockefeller drug laws of the 1970s.
One state leading the way in the field is New York, which in April enacted sweeping reforms to its drugs laws, known commonly as the
Rockefeller drug laws and often described as the strictest drug laws in the country.
David Paterson says, "I can't think of a criminal justice strategy that has been more unsuccessful than the
Rockefeller drug laws."