Regular readers likely remember some recent and many older posts discussing the problems with drug-free zone laws that can sometimes result in first-time and low-level drug offenders facing and receiving extreme prison sentences when just happening to be inadvertently in the wrong place at the time of their offense. Via this post at Reason, headlined "ALEC Urges State to Reform Drug-Free School Zone Laws," I see that a not-so-usual suspect is now calling for the reform of these laws. Here are the details (with links from the original):
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a conservative, pro-business organization that drafts model bills for state legislatures, passed a resolution Friday urging states to reform their drug-free school zone laws. The conservative group is the latest in a growing bipartisan chorus opposing punitive drug-free school zone laws, which exist in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
"Most Drug-Free Zone laws were established decades ago," the resolution says, "but have not been reformed despite evidence that Drug-Free Zones are arbitrary and often unnecessarily broad, are ineffective at deterring drug- related crime, and create significant unintended consequences, including unwarranted disparate impacts on minority defendants."
That's exactly what a December Reason investigation into Tennessee's Drug-Free School Zone Act found. Tennessee's drug-free school zones extend 1,000 feet from the real property of every school, library, park, and daycare in the state. Using GIS data obtained from the state, Reason found there were 8,544 separate drug-free zones in Tennessee, amounting to 5 percent of the overall area of the state and 26 percent of urban areas.
Those enhanced sentencing zones were rarely, if ever, used to prosecute drug crimes involving children, according to interviews with prosecutors and defense attorneys. But they did result in first-time and low-level drug offenders receiving longer prison sentences than if they had been found guilty of second-degree murder or rape. Sentencing data also showed wide racial disparities in who received drug-free school zone sentences, with blacks making up 69 percent of all current inmates serving time for violations of the act, despite only making up 17 percent of the state population. The zones, which tend to cluster in low-income and minority neighborhoods, also give prosecutors immense leverage to squeeze plea deals out of defendants.
Several states have passed reforms to their laws over the past decade, shrinking the size and number of zones. The Tennessee legislature is considering a similar reform this year to shrink its zones from 1,000 feet to 500 feet. A bipartisan group of civil liberties and criminal justice organizations are supporting the bill, such as Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM). Conservative lawmakers recognize that drug-free school zone laws have proven to be a costly failure," FAMM president Kevin Ring said in a statement on the ALEC resolution. "These laws stick low-level offenders with long sentences even when no children are involved and, as a result, they waste resources that could be better spent on more serious offenders."
A few of many prior related posts:
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