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For Immediate Release: Tuesday, May 4,
2004.
Contact: Tony Newman (212) 613-8026 or
Elizabeth Mendez Berry (212) 613-8036
Historic Moment for New York: State Legislature
Convenes Joint Senate/Assembly Committee on Rockefeller
Reform
Real Reform 2004 Campaign
to Policy Makers: We’re United, New Yorkers
Are with Us, and We’re Determined to See
Real Change
The Rockefeller reform community
is pleased with the state legislature’s decision
to convene a joint Senate/Assembly conference
committee on Rockefeller drug law reform, but
the crucial question remains: Will what is ultimately
enacted as reform in Albany be real reform? Real
Reform 2004, a coalition of experts, advocates,
Rockefeller survivors’ families and activists,
has come together as never before in order to
watchdog the legislative process on behalf of
the majority of New York voters who support the
Real Reform agenda. The coalition will keep the
public up-to-date with information and analysis,
and it will expose any effort to derail real reform
with rhetoric and empty legislation.
Real Reform 2004 defines Real
Reform as:
- Reducing sentences to levels
proportionate to those for other non-violent
crimes, and to bring New York into line with
national standards.
- Restoring judicial discretion
so judges can fashion just sentences based on
consideration of the particular case and, when
appropriate, sentence low-level offenders to
community-based treatment.
- Delivering retroactive sentencing
relief to currently incarcerated Rockefeller
inmates serving unjustly long sentences.
- Expanding drug treatment programs
and other alternatives to incarceration for
diverted low-level offenders.
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