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The Road from Rocky: After The Rockefeller Drug Law Reforms

The Rockefeller drug laws were the among the country’s harshest penalties during the “war on drugs.” When the laws were repealed last year civil rights advocates cheered while prosecutors warned of dire consequences. Over the next several months, WSHU's Long Island reporter Charles Lane will follow the lives of several people granted leniency under the new reforms and examine the impact the Rockefeller reforms have on New York’s judicial system.

It's been over a year since New York implemented the Rockefeller Drug Law reforms, which divert drug addicted felons from prison to treatment. WSHU has been following several of the people going through the new program. Some of them get treatment in rigorous residential treatment facilities, but most don't.

Last year the New York State Legislature voted to give drug addicts a second chance, by doing away with the last remnants of the Rockefeller drug laws. Some considered the old laws draconian and reformers praised the change saying it could stop the addiction cycle by diverting addicts bound for prison and instead send them to treatment. For the last couple months WSHU's Charles Lane has been investigating how this judicial diversion has been implemented so far across the state. And he finds that the impact of the reforms largely depends on which county the addict is convicted in.

It's been nine months since New York significantly changed the way it punishes non-violent drug offenders. It was last October when the so-called Rockefeller Drug Laws were reformed, giving judges the option of sending addicts to treatment instead of prison.

Nearly nine months ago, a new law took affect in New York that significantly changed the so-called Rockefeller Drug Laws. For years critics have called the Rockefeller laws draconian and so they've hailed these reforms as groundbreaking. But what impact the reforms will have is still unfolding.

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