Debate
Over New York's Mandatory Minimum Sentencing Laws
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Transcript:
Religion and Ethics Newsweekly: PBS
March 11, 2005
BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: Thirty years ago, New York State led the so-called
war on drugs by passing laws requiring harsh sentences even for nonviolent
first-time offenders. Since then, the number of prison inmates has
gone up dramatically, and so has national concern that mandatory sentencing
is not fair. New York recently reduced some of its required sentences,
but critics say they're still too long. Those opponents have been
influenced in part by the public advocacy of a former inmate, Elaine
Bartlett. Lucky Severson reports on her and the ongoing mandatory
sentencing debate.
LUCKY SEVERSON reporting:
This is Elaine Bartlett, with her oldest son, Apache, in their old
public
housing neighborhood on Manhattan's Lower East Side. She always wears
bright, cheerful colors--not what you might expect from a mother of
four who spent 16 years in prison for a first-time drug offense. New
York Governor Pataki granted her clemency in 2000.
Ms. ELAINE BARTLETT (Former Inmate): That was the happiest day of
my life. It was actually a snowstorm that day, and I danced out of
Bedford Gates in my pink suit, my black heels, and I felt like I was
reborn, that I had my life back
again.
SEVERSON: Her crime, which she did not deny, was that she transported
a
four-ounce package of cocaine to upstate New York. It was a stupid
thing, but it fit the hard-luck pattern of her life--one brother murdered,
another in prison,
a third dead of AIDS. She was sentenced to 20 years.
Ms. BARTLETT: At the end, when they said, `Do you have anything to
say?' I
stated that I felt that I was being railroaded out of my life. It
didn't take 16
years for me to learn my lesson. There are so many other things that
could have
been done with me in them 16 years. They could have put me under house
arrest. They could have educated me.
SEVERSON: The price she paid, and the sum society pays to keep Elaine
and
tens of thousands like her in prison, is the subject of an intense
public debate
about the ethics and value of mandatory minimum sentencing. Like the
majority of US lawmakers, former congressman and CNN analyst Bob Barr
defends mandatory sentencing--says it was an answer to a public outcry...
Mr. BOB BARR (CNN Contributor): ...and a general sense on the part
of
the--the public that drug usage, particularly cocaine, which had really
become
in vogue in the 19--the latter part of the 1970s, was getting out
of hand. And
they were seeing people or perceived that they were seeing people
getting
caught, going into prison, and getting out immediately.
SEVERSON: Mandatory sentencing laws took off with the skyrocketing
drug crime of the '70s and '80s. Sentences, both federal and state,
are based on the weight and type of drugs, and vary from five years
to life in prison.
Have they worked?
Mr. BARR: They--they have worked. As good or as consistently as we
had hoped? No. But they have worked, I--I do believe. I think it is
a very sound idea; I think it's a very appropriate idea or way to
deal with serious offenders.
SEVERSON: If success is measured in numbers, mandatory sentences have
worked. Partly as a result, there are now more Americans in prison
than ever before, about two million, at an average cost of $23,000
to house each inmate each year. But former US District Judge John
Martin says the guidelines are often too harsh and target the wrong
people.
Judge JOHN MARTIN (Former United States District Court Judge): It's
poor law enforcement because you're not targeting the right people.
You're imposing sentences on people that don't deserve them, where
you should be targeting those sentences for the major dealers.
SEVERSON: Consider Tammi Bloom. She's been in a federal prison in
Florida six years of a 20-year sentence. Her husband and his girlfriend
were convicted of dealing drugs, and one of them implicated Tammi
in a minor role. But after the two plea-bargained, this mother of
two ended up with the longest sentence.
Ms. TAMMI BLOOM (Inmate, Coleman Federal Prison): The first thing
I thought was that, my God, they're taking me away from my children.
I mean, what am I going to do? What are they going to do?
You make one mistake, and your life is taken away from you. I mean,
that's not fair. I mean, I can guarantee you, when they handcuffed
me to go to county jail, that was enough for me. I didn't--I didn't
need the rest of it.
SEVERSON: Judge Martin says, if inmates like Tammi Bloom and Elaine
Bartlett had information to trade, they could have bargained for a
reduced sentence.
Judge MARTIN: The lower-level people don't have enough information
for the prosecutor to want their cooperation, so it's often the case
that it is the major dealer who gets the value of the cooperation
letter, and the people lower down the line get the severe sentences.
Ms. BARTLETT: And the 16 years that I was in a maximum facility for
women, I haven't met one kingpin.
SEVERSON: The trend toward state mandatory sentences got started here
in New York in 1973 with moderate Republican Governor Nelson Rockefeller.
The governor, who wanted to be president, needed more convincingly
conservative credentials. Certainly didn't hurt when he got enacted
the toughest drug laws in the country--the same laws that put Elaine
Bartlett in prison for longer than most convicted killers.
Of the people behind bars in New York state with mandatory sentences,
over 90 percent are African-Americans and Hispanics. Julie Stewart,
of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, says the laws indirectly target
minorities.
Ms. JULIE STEWART (Families Against Mandatory Minimums): More African-Americans
are being arrested, because it's a lot easier to watch a couple kids
on a street corner doing a crack deal than it is to go into some community
behind gated walls and watch the powder cocaine being snorted.
SEVERSON: Julie Stewart's brother was sentenced to five years for
growing marijuana. That's why she founded Families Against Mandatory
Minimums.
Ms. STEWART: I'm actually not sorry my brother was arrested, and I'm
not even 100-percent sorry that he went to prison. Though, he was
very much addicted to marijuana, believe it or not. It was the wake-up
call he needed to recognize that he was completely off track. What
he didn't need was five years in prison. Six months would have done
it.
SEVERSON: Bob Barr says the rigid laws are necessary, first as a deterrent,
and also to prevent judges from handing down sentences that he says
are too often too lenient.
Mr. BARR: It does push a great deal more power in the hands of the
prosecutor.
SEVERSON: Is that the way it was intended to be?
Mr. BARR: Yes, and there's nothing inherently wrong with that. I mean,
there's nothing in our system of jurisprudence or in the Constitution
that says that the ultimate source of power in these things has to
be the judge.
SEVERSON: Tell that to former Judge John Martin, who quit the bench
to protest mandatory minimums.
Judge MARTIN: It's very easy to run for office saying, `I was tough
on crime' No member of Congress has to look at an individual and that
individual's family and see the unfairness of that sentence that is
being imposed, and the devastating impact that it has on the family.
SEVERSON: While Elaine Bartlett was in prison, her mother, Yvonne,
took care of the children. She brought them to prison almost every
weekend. But when she became ill and passed away, the family fell
apart.
Ms. BARTLETT: When I got home and put that key in the door, and opened
the door to find my family out here in society, and basically me living
better in jail than my family was living out here in the project apartment,
my world crushed.
SEVERSON: Her youngest son, Jamel, is in prison on a drug charge.
One young daughter had left home. Another threatened suicide. Apache
was never in trouble, and spends much of his time teaching kids basketball,
trying to be a role model in a place where there are very few.
Mr. APACHE PASCHALL: Because of her mistake, the mistake that she
made, it definitely enabled me not to ever make that mistake. So I'm
not--I'm not bitter, you know, towards her. I'm bitter that I had
to live 15 years of my life without her, and I needed her there just
like any other--any other kid would need their mother.
Ms. STEWART: Almost everyone in prison comes out again; even if they've
been there 25 years, they come out again. They're not the same person
they were when they went in, and if we're lucky, they're mellow. If
we're not, they're bitter and angry, and they want to sort of--revenge
the--what they perceive as the injustice done to them.
SEVERSON: There is no way to determine if mandatory sentences actually
reduce drug crime. A study by the Rand Corporation concluded that
treatment programs work best for first-time offenders, and 25 states
have rolled back minimum sentences in favor of treatment and community
service.
Would you abolish mandatory sentences altogether?
Judge MARTIN: In a heartbeat.
Mr. BARR: No, I don't think that's necessarily a good idea. I don't
think that would necessarily reflect the will of the people, and one
has to take the will of the people into account.
SEVERSON: There's a book out now about Elaine Bartlett's odyssey,
called "Life On the Outside," and now the convict has turned
crusader.
Ms. BARTLETT: The war on drugs is not stopping the drugs from coming
into the country; it's not stopping the drugs from getting into our
communities, into our kids. And the war on drugs, to me, is really
a war on families.
SEVERSON: Elaine Bartlett may not find the battle against mandatory
sentences as difficult as it once was. Poll after poll show that a
majority of Americans now think that the price to society has been
too high.
For RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY, I'm Lucky Severson in New York.
Interfaith
Drug Policy
Initiative, P.O. Box 6299, Washington,
D.C. 20015
Phone: 301-933-7681 Fax:301-933-7682 |
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