Usefulness of drug-free zones is questioned
By David Crary
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
03/23/2006
NEW YORK
In reaction to the crack epidemic of the 1980s, laws creating drug-free zones around schools spread nationwide. Now, questions are being raised - by legislators, activists, even law enforcement officials - about the fairness and effectiveness of those laws.
In New Jersey, Connecticut and Washington state, bills have been proposed to sharply reduce the size of the zones. A former assistant attorney general in Massachusetts reviewed hundreds of drug-free zone cases and found that less than 1 percent involved drug sales to youths.
Citing such developments, the Washington-based Justice Policy Institute is issuing a report today that contends such laws, which generally carry extra-stiff mandatory penalties, have done little to safeguard young people and are enforced disproportionately on blacks and Hispanics.
"For two decades, policymakers have mistakenly assumed that these statutes shield children from drug activity," said report co-author Judith Greene, a New York-based researcher. "We found no evidence that drug-free zone laws protect children, but ample evidence that the laws hurt communities of color."
New Jersey's sentencing review commission reached similar conclusions in December, when the panel - made up of state officials and criminal justice experts - found that students were involved in only 2 percent of the cases it examined. It said drug-free zones around schools, parks and housing projects cover virtually all of some cities, and 96 percent of offenders jailed for zone violations were black or Hispanic.
Instead of declining, drug arrests in the zones have risen steadily since the law took effect in 1987, the commission found.
A bill based on the panel's recommendation has been introduced that would reduce the zones to 200 feet from the present size of 1,000 feet around schools and 500 feet around parks and public housing. Drug dealers in the smaller zones would face five to 10 years in prison, compared to three to five years under current law - but judges would have more discretion in sentencing.
"When the overlap of zones in densely populated areas covers the entire city, the idea of special protection loses its meaning - people don't know they're in a school zone," said Ben Barlyn, a deputy attorney general and executive director of the sentencing review panel. "It would be as if we made the entire New Jersey Turnpike a reduced speed zone."
Even though the reasoning for this revalation (that the laws catch too many people of the wrong race) is flawed, it's nice to know that reality does sometimes break through to people.
