PROVIDENCE -- Residents, civil-rights advocates and community leaders held a news conference at the State House yesterday to announce widespread support for legislation that would eliminate mandatory minimum drug sentences and allow judges more discretion in doling out punishment.
The event, which was hosted by Direct Action for Rights & Equality (DARE), coincided with the introduction this week of House and Senate bills by Rep. Joseph Almeida and Sen. Harold Metts.
"For over 30 years, this country and this state have been fighting an ill-conceived war against drugs," Steven Brown, executive director of the Rhode Island Affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union, told the audience.
The fight consisted of poorly conceived laws, such as mandatory minimum sentences, that were designed to reduce drug use and distribution.
However, Brown said, enforcement of the laws has been arbitrary and capricious -- consistent only in the resulting discriminatory effect that they have had on people of color and the poor.
Even though blacks and Hispanics are not more predisposed to use drugs than whites, and the poor are not more predisposed to use drugs than the rich, those being sentenced under mandatory minimum laws are overwhelmingly black and Hispanic and poor.
"It is time for enforcement of this nature to stop," Brown said.
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