CHANGE THIS HARMFUL LAW

Years ago, New Jersey's legislators, in one of their recurring
crackdown-on-crime modes, enacted a law creating so-called drug-free
zones within 1,000 feet of a school or school bus, and another law
creating 1,000-foot zones around parks, libraries and other public
facilities. Anyone convicted of a drug crime within the zone gets a
mandatory three-year prison term tacked onto his penalty, with the
judge given no leeway to consider the circumstances.

Passing the law enabled its supporters to boast to the voters that
they were tough-minded protectors of children. But its results have
been disastrous, according to a report by the New Jersey Commission
to Review Criminal Sentencing.

The commission, consisting of law-enforcement officials, judges,
legislators, public defenders, prosecutors and other criminal justice
experts, took a hard look at the evidence and the data and concluded:
"The statistics bear out beyond doubt that the drug-free zone laws,
as presently applied, have had a devastatingly disproportionate
impact on New Jersey's minority community. Of no less importance, the
available evidence strongly suggests that the laws as presently
written do not further what the Legislature clearly intended to be
their specific purpose: to protect certain premises from the primary
and secondary effects of the illicit drug trade."

The laws' ineffectiveness is demonstrated by the fact that there has
been no increase in drug-distribution offenses immediately outside
the 1,000-foot perimeter, as one would expect if the law was working.
Instead, arrests within the zone have steadily risen over the years.
Nevertheless, of 90 reported school-zone cases studied, not a single
case involved selling drugs to minors - the cohort that the law
supposedly was enacted to protect.

And those arrested have been overwhelmingly African-American or
Latino. These groups constitute 96 percent of all New Jersey inmates
whose most serious offense is a school-zone violation. Yet they make
up only 27 percent of New Jersey's population. Only two out of 10
suburban or rural drug-distribution offenses occur within school
zones, while in the urban areas, with higher concentrations of
schools, school buses and other public facilities, eight out of 10
distribution offenses do. "Basically, New Jersey has two different
punishments for the same crime," says Drug Policy Alliance New
Jersey, "with the severity of the punishment being based on geography
and, ultimately, on race."

Not only are the laws ineffective and counterproductive; they waste
dollars. As the commission points out, New Jersey spends some $279
million a year just to incarcerate drug offenders - about $3l,000 per
offender per year. Many of these people would be more effectively and
inexpensively dealt with by drug treatment - not a small
consideration in heavily taxed, deep-in-debt New Jersey. But the law
gives a sentencing judge confronted with a defendant convicted of a
zone violation no choice.

The commission recommends that the zones be reduced from 1,000 feet
to 200 feet and the penalty for offenses be increased within the
200-foot zone (but without the mandatory minimum). That would more
closely link the zones to the schools themselves and produce a
greater deterrent effect - and greater protection for children -
while restoring the sentencing flexibility the courts should be
trusted with. The recommendations, and the report itself, are
supported by many agencies and groups, including the Attorney
General's Office, the New Jersey Prosecutors Association, the New
Jersey Chiefs of Police, the Black Ministers Council and the Hispanic
Directors Association. An Assembly bill, A-4465, that would implement
the proposals has bipartisan sponsorship and was reported out of
committee Dec. 5. There's no rational reason why both houses of the
Legislature shouldn't approve it as soon as possible.