FAMM Applauds Gov. Patrick for Insistence on Mandatory Minimum Sentencing Reforms

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date: January 24, 2012
Contact: media@famm.org

BOSTON:  Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM) applauds Gov. Deval Patrick’s insistence that any sentencing reform bill sent to him by the Legislature must include reforms to the state’s failed drug sentencing laws.  During his State of the Commonwealth address last night, the Governor linked the need for more effective drug sentencing laws to controversial habitual offender measures passed by the Legislature in late 2011.  He called for a crime bill that is both “strong and smart.”  

Barbara J. Dougan, director of FAMM’s Massachusetts project, issued this statement:

“Decades of experience prove the Governor right.  Warehousing nonviolent drug offenders has indeed been a costly policy failure – from any perspective.  Denying nonviolent drug offenders the same re-entry opportunities available to most other prisoners only leads to recidivism.   Requiring one-size-fits-all sentences results in overly harsh punishment for many, at the taxpayers’ expense.  Focusing on drug dependency solely as a criminal matter merely perpetuates the cycle of addiction, ignoring the treatment programs that can reclaim lives and reunite families.”

In November 2011, the Senate included mandatory minimum reforms in its omnibus sentencing bill.   The House leadership recently announced that it will take up a second sentencing bill, one that addresses other issues from the Senate bill besides habitual offenders.  

Says Dougan, “FAMM joins with Governor Patrick and urges the House to pass a bill that would grant parole eligibility to state prisoners  serving mandatory minimums after they have served one half of their sentence and reduce school zones to 100 feet from 1,000.” FAMM also supports those parts of the Governor’s bill that would repeal mandatory minimum sentences and allow drug offenders to take part in work release programs and to earn good conduct credits.  FAMM’s Massachusetts members have been writing and calling their representatives in the House, urging them to include long overdue mandatory minimum reforms in the bill.

As for the habitual offender bills, Dougan says, “We have urged the conference committee that is currently negotiating a final bill to carefully limit it to only the most egregious of violent offenses.  In addition, any such bill should not foreclose the possibility of parole for those who may show themselves worthy of that chance.”

Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM), is a national nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that works to insure that the punishment fits the crime.  In 2008, FAMM launched a project in Massachusetts to reform state mandatory minimum sentencing laws for drug and school zone offenses.   For more information on our work in Massachusetts, visit http://www.famm.org/StateSentencing/Massachusetts.aspx. 

--30--