June 15, 2007
UNHAPPY BIRTHDAY
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Activists let Spitzer eat cake |
On a balmy morning last Friday, some 75 protesters gathered outside of Governor Eliot Spitzer's Third Avenue headquarters in Manhattan to recognize two birthdays: the Governor's 48th and the Rockefeller drug laws' 34 th . Wearing birthday hats, participants in the merry "celebration" symbolically presented Spitzer with a birthday card and cake with a message inscribed in icing: "Real Reform of the Rockefeller Drug Laws NOW."
Event organizers Drug Policy Alliance (DPA), along with Housing Works, Citywide, Rights for the Imprisoned with Mental Disabilities, VOCAL and Prison Families Community Forum thought it was an appropriate time to remind Spitzer that New Yorkers are still waiting for him to make good on his campaign promise to reform the draconian and destructive Rockefeller drug laws, including decreasing mandatory minimum sentences and helping people convicted of drug offenses to get drug treatment.
Spitzer is famous for claiming that "Day One, everything changes," but in his industrious and closely watched first 100 days in office, he took no notable steps to "drop the Rock," according to DPA's Naoma Nagahawatte. "We are insanely disappointed with the Governor," she said. Nagahawatte added that the DPA has consistently tried to work with Spitzer but Spitzer has not responded. The governor's office could not be reached for comment before press time.
Spitzer has issued an executive order creating a commission that will review prison sentencing, including the Rockefeller laws, in September, but advocates say it's too little too late for thousands needlessly languishing behind bars. They plan on insisting on a stronger response from the governor and mobilizing more New Yorkers against the Rockefeller laws. According to Real Reform's latest survey, 79 percent of the city's denizens want Rockefeller reform.
Racist and unfair
The Rockefeller Drug Laws impose extremely harsh sentences for nonviolent drug crimes and force judges to give out unusually long sentences. For example, anyone selling two ounces or possessing four ounces of an illegal narcotic receives a prison term of no less than 15 years to life. The laws have proved grievously unjust not because they ensnared clueless young people but because they are a dragnet for people of color. According to advocates, of the 15,000 people locked up under the Rockefeller laws, 92 percent are people of color despite the fact that white people and people of color use drugs at approximately equal rates.
"I know how messed up the justice system is. I was in it. We need to keep on advocating for those who can't do it themselves," said Housings Works advocacy community organizer Derrick Chandler. Chandler, who contracted HIV through intravenous drug use, spent time in prison and knows people who have suffered because of the Rockefeller laws. "Prisons don't give nearly adequate drug treatment, but treatment, not punishment, is what people addicted to drugs need," he said.
The backwardness of the Rockefeller laws was palpable at the rally, as one speaker after other told nightmarish stories. A black couple, Cheri O'Donoghue and her husband, explained how they had been fighting for their son Ashley's freedom for four years. Donoghue said that Ashley was arrested in a sting operation involving two white Hamilton College drug-users-turned-informants. It was his first offense, but Ashley was sentenced to seven to 21 years in prison. The college kids? Not a day in jail and a sealed file.
To get involved in reforming the Rockefeller laws visit DPA and Real Reform.