Sentencing:
Drug-Free
Zone
Laws
Don't
Work
and
Result
in
Racial
Disparities,
New
Report
Says
3/24/06
Laws that create heightened penalties for drug offenses near schools, public housing, and other designated places were ostensibly designed to protect young people from drug-related activity, but fail to do so, according to a report released Thursday by the Justice Policy Institute. At the same time, drug-free zone laws result in a disproportionate number of non-white Americans being subjected to stiffer penalties than whites engaged in similar conduct, the report found. The report, "Disparity by Design: How Drug-Free Zone Law Impact Racial Disparity -- And Fail to Protect Youth" was commissioned by the Drug Policy Alliance and examines drug-free zone laws in a number of states. The report looks at the intent and history behind the laws, as well as their results and the growing chorus of criticism of them. "For two decades, policymakers have mistakenly assumed that these statutes shield children from drug activity," said report author Judith Greene. "We found no evidence that drug-free zone laws protect children, but ample evidence that the laws hurt communities of color and contribute to mounting correctional costs." Drug-free zone laws provided heightened penalties, and often, mandatory minimum sentences for offenses that occur within designated areas around schools, parks, playgrounds and other locations -- whether or not the offenses had anything whatsoever to do with children. When such laws are enacted in densely populated urban areas, they often result in a crazy quilt patchwork of heightened punishment zones that cover huge swathes of cities while failing to inform residents where their boundaries are. In New Jersey, for example, three-quarters of Newark and more than half of Jersey City and Camden are included in drug-free zones, while only 6% of rural Mansfield Township is covered by them. The result, said the New Jersey Sentencing Commission, is "a devastatingly disproportionate effect on New Jersey's minority community." "The school zones laws don't work the way we want them to -- we are not actually giving criminals an incentive to stay away from schools," said William Brownsberger, a drug policy expert and former Assistant Attorney General for Narcotics for Massachusetts. "If we reduced the size of the zones, we would actually protect kids better." Among the report's key findings:
Coincidentally, the day before the report was released, a case from Massachusetts demonstrated how drug-free zone laws result in wildly disproportionate penalties. In Berkshire Superior Court, Mitchell Otis was found guilty of selling 1.2 grams of marijuana to an undercover police officer in a zone that was drug-free because it was near the urban parking lot for a high school. District Attorney David Capeless included a drug-free zone sentencing enhancement in the charge, meaning that Otis must now serve a mandatory two years in prison without parole. "School zone laws have remained unchanged in Massachusetts because the legislature has been promised that prosecutors use discretion," said Whitney Taylor, executive director of the Drug Policy Forum of Massachusetts. "Unfortunately the life of a young man has been sacrificed, proving that discretion is not being used and that the law must be changed. There are violent and serious criminals across Berkshire County that are going un-prosecuted because DA David Capeless is choosing to use precious law enforcement, judicial and prosecutorial resources to send a first-time offender to jail for over two years for the crime of selling a very small amount of marijuana to an adult who repeatedly requested it. This is the wrong message to be sending to our youth and communities," concluded Taylor.
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