Our Stories
Share the power of long-term recovery. If you are in recovery, a family member, friend or ally of someone in recovery, we want to hear your recovery story!
Learn more...
Faces & Voices of Recovery's book page
has information on many of the growing number of recovery-related publications. It’s a work in progress, so please let us know of other books that you think we should include. Check it out!
|
Recovery in the News
State helps ease drug offenders' release
Sarah Foss
The Daily Gazette
July 19, 2009
NEW YORK STATE — In the fall, low-level drug offenders will begin trickling out of state prisons and into treatment programs under the landmark state drug law reforms passed earlier this year.
Legislation dismantling most of the state’s strict Rockefeller drug laws was signed into law in April by Gov. David Paterson. The bill repealed many of the state’s mandatory minimum prison sentences for lower-level drug offenders.
By this fall, the state will have 500 new beds in residential treatment facilities, according to Dianne Henk, a spokeswoman for the state Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services, OASAS. An additional 235 beds have been designated for some freed under the law changes.
“The wheels are starting to move,” said Gabriel Sayegh, project director of the New York City-based Drug Policy Alliance, which pushed for the changes. “This represents a significant shift in how we approach questions of drug dependency and use.”
The new approach, he said, emphasizes public health. “It’s very exciting.”
Sayegh and other advocates say the Rockefeller laws filled the state’s prisons with nonviolent drug users who would have been better served by treatment and alternative programs. The Rockefeller drug laws were enacted in 1973 and were among the harshest in the nation.
Under the reforms, judges can sentence nonviolent and lower-felony offenders to jail, probation or a combination of the two, a six-month military style shock camp or a prison-run drug treatment facility.
Opponents have said the new laws will send criminals back into the community.
In April, Paterson announced the creation of the Addictions Collaborative to Improve Outcomes for New York, an initiative to address alcohol, drug and gambling addictions. Among other things, ACTION will monitor and coordinate implementation of the drug law reforms.
“We’re coming up with an effective, evidence-based strategy to address the disease of addiction, and improve the lives, health and safety of New Yorkers,” said Karen Carpenter-Palumbo, commissioner of OASAS, the agency coordinating ACTION.
The state budget for 2009-10 includes $800,000 for outpatient and case management, $4 million for running the new drug treatment beds and $10 million for sites for those beds. Henk said that over the next few years OASAS will receive between $42 million and $50 million to implement drug law reform; overall, about $70 million will be infused into the system.
As of June 27, the state had identified 1,091 inmates who were potentially eligible to apply to the courts for resentencing under Rockefeller drug law reform, according to the New York state Department of Correctional Services. Inmates can begin applying for resentencing on Oct. 7.
State agencies, counties and nonprofit organizations are already gearing up for those seeking re-entry into society.
“We do not expect Rockefeller drug law reform to be fully implemented until 2011 to 2012,” Henk said.
Eighty percent of New York parolees and probationers have had a substance abuse problem, and more than half of all prison inmates were under the influence of drugs or alcohol when they were arrested, according to OASAS.
A NATIONAL MODEL
Sayegh said that if New York’s drug law reform is successful, the state has the potential to become a national model. He said that more states are examining the costs of incarceration, and beginning to realize that other strategies may be more cost-effective.
Earlier this year, U.S. Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., introduced legislation to create a bipartisan commission on prison reform. In an essay published in Parade magazine, Webb wrote, “Our overcrowded, ill-managed prison systems are places of violence, physical abuse, and hate, making them breeding grounds that perpetuate and magnify the same types of behavior we purport to fear.”
“I think at this point we’ve moved beyond a question of whether our drug laws are working,” Sayegh said. “The consensus is that they’re not working. … It’s very likely that what we do in New York will inform much of what the dismantling of the drug war will look like.”
Earlier this month, R. Gil Kerlikowske, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, met with state agency commissioners at a New York City treatment program for parolees to discuss strategies. As the nation’s drug czar, Kerlikowske coordinates federal drug control programs.
As of last week, there were 59,460 inmates in the state prison system and not quite 20 percent — under 12,000 — were incarcerated for drug offenses, according to state records.
Advocates for drug law reform say they are pleased with how it is taking shape, but that it is far too early to gauge its success.
“One of the things we want to look at, as a measure of whether the new laws are effective, is the number of prisoners sent to prison each month, and how it compares to previous years,” said Robert Gangi, executive director of the prison watchdog group the Correctional Association of New York and a spokesman for the Drop the Rock campaign, which pushed for repeal of the Rockefeller drug laws.
Gangi said the Drop the Rock campaign will retool its mission to push for an overall reduction in the state’s prison population, which in the past decade has declined by about 12,000 prisoners. “That’s a significant trend, and it’s counter to national trends,” he said.
The Drop the Rock campaign will also advocate for a full repeal of the Rockefeller drug laws — “although the changes were significant, some of the mandatory sentencing provisions were left on the books” — and assess the state’s parole policies. Gangi said that over the years, work release options have been significantly reduced, and “we believe those programs should be expanded.
“We’re moving forward to build on the progress that’s been made,” Gangi said.
SOME STILL ADDICTED
Last spring the Center for Law and Justice in Albany opened its new Jeffrey Wood Re-entry Center in the city’s South End, with the goal of aiding ex-prisoners in their transition to civilian life. Now the organization is readying for the people who will be released.
Alice Green, executive director of the Center for Law and Justice, said many ex-prisoners have addictions. “They don’t get rid of those addictions when they’re in prison,” she said. “When they come out, they need treatment, they need jobs, and they need housing.”
The Center for Law and Justice also plans to reach out to lower-level drug offenders through its First Stop program, which runs a drop-in program for ex-prisoners at the Albany Public Library on Thursday evenings.
Green said the center is shifting its focus from the rights of prisoners to aiding ex-prisoners. “We started to realize that with a policy of mass incarceration, you have lots of people coming in and lots of people coming out,” she said. “We realized that it was difficult to respond to requests from prisoners.”
“We’re not focused on recidivism,” Green said. “We want to know whether people can leave prison and become part of mainstream society. I think we’ve got to do much more on that level. Otherwise we’ll create a caste system of the unemployable and convicted.”
Right now, “we aren’t letting ex-prisoners be part of society.