Progress Illinois

New York Gov. David Paterson probably will not be elected to serve a second term in Albany, but his legacy may have been cemented yesterday when the state officially repealed significant portions of the Rockefeller Drug Laws. Instituted in 1973, the strict and punitive provisions removed judicial discretion in sentencing and mandated harsh penalties for nonviolent drug offenses, which ultimately increased New York's prison population dramatically. While the reforms that were passed this spring and signed by Paterson still leave some room for improvement -- mandatory minimum sentences are maintained, for example -- drug treatment programs were expanded and judges were provided more discretion to divert nonviolent criminals into those programs. Approximately 1,100 individuals currently serving long sentences for are now eligible for re-sentencing.

The occasion presents an opportunity for Illinoisans serious about criminal justice reform to reflect on our own state's progress in this field. And New York could serve as a good example for how to begin tackling reform. Even before the Rockefeller laws were paired down, New York officials had taken significant steps to diminish its prison population, according to Northwestern University School of Law's Malcolm Young:

New York never enacted rigid determinate sentencing and, apart from the notorious Rockefeller drug laws, avoided high mandatory minimums, according to the report. New York also invested in an infrastructure of alternatives to incarceration. It rapidly disposes of thousands of minor cases without lengthy pre-trial or post-sentencing incarceration and recently revised stiff drug-sentencing laws to keep low-level drug offenders out of prison and accommodate the release of rehabilitated offenders before the end of their sentences.

These smart policies resulted in a 9 percent decrease in the Empire State's prison population between 1995 and 2007. During the same period, Illinois prisons grew by another 20 percent.  (We now house over 45,000 inmates at a cost of $1.36 billion dollars per year.) However, instead of spearheading serious anti-recidivism and sentencing reforms, our top prison official is busy withering criticism of an early release plan that won't endanger public safety and will save the budget-strapped state money.

To be blunt, we are still way behind the curve.