I'm working with a writer on an article about the reforms to the Rockefeller Drug Laws that were recently signed into law. Was looking for two things:
1.) actual text of the new law
2.) want to do a sidebar/infobox on the seven or so neighborhoods in nyc that send a hugely disproportionate number of drug offenders to state prisons. i don't know those seven off the top of my head but i'm guessing south bronx, wash heights, harlem, bed-stuy, etc,... the data we would be looking for: number of drug war prisoners from a given neighborhood in prison, drug war prisoners from a given neighborhood in prison as a percentage of the total nyc drug war prisoner population.
Also, what's the total percentage of black and latino prisoners doing time under the Rockefeller drug laws. I seem to recall seeing 94% one time which is shocking.
*From a phone call to the NY State Assembly Information line:
The bill number for the law that amends the Rockefeller laws, signed by Gov. Pataki on Dec. 14, 2004, is assembly bill A11895 (2004), chapter 738.
*The only free online source I was able to find for the full text was at the Center for Community Alternatives site (older bills seem to disappear off the state assembly site). The pdf is here.
*And more info. from the Center for Community Alternatives on the Rockefeller laws is here.
*As for as total percentage of black and latino inmates serving time under the Rockefeller laws, I found a 94% statistic from the New York Civil Liberties Union, which cites the Correctional Association of New York. The report from the (Correctional Association of New York actually states 93%.
*More background is in: LeBlanc, Adrian Nicole, Random Family: Love, Drugs, and Coming of Age in the Bronx, Scribner (ISBN: 0-6848-6387-1).