U.S.: An ode to New York’s Rockefeller drug laws. We won’t miss you.
- What were they? Back in the 1970s, Republican Governor Nelson Rockefeller, in an attempt to stem a drug-related “reign of terror,” got a series of laws passed that were the toughest in the nation at the time, and led to a controversial trend towards mandatory minimum sentencing.
- Their effect The laws often forced judges to sentence even minor drug offenders with the same broad stroke, filling prisons with first-time offenders getting sent there instead of rehab, which would often have made a lot more sense considering the nature of their crimes.
- Cost savingsThere’s a lot of reasons the laws are getting peeled back now, but the biggest reason is cost. Keeping prison in prisons isn’t cheap, and repealing this law would cut the prison population by thousands, making more room for inmates like Bernard Madoff. source