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MA: Cheap trick :Cash-strapped state legislators are finally considering relaxing mandatory drug sentences. Will budget woes succeed where appeals to justice have failed?

By Real Cost of Prisons Project (The Sentencing Project)

Cheap trick :Cash-strapped state legislators are finally considering relaxing mandatory drug sentences. Will budget woes succeed where appeals to justice have failed? BY KRISTEN LOMBARDI Boston Phoenix, June 17, 2008 AFTER MORE THAN a decade of tough-on-crime policies ? fueled by 13 years of Republican administrations committed to re-introducing prisoners to the joys of lethal injection ? the law-and-order atmosphere at the Massachusetts State House has begun to dissipate. A case in point: two bills recently filed on Beacon Hill that take aim at the state?s draconian mandatory-minimum-sentence drug laws. The first measure, known as Senate Bill 167, would make drug offenders who have already served two-thirds of mandatory-minimum sentences eligible for parole ? something that they currently cannot seek, unlike rapists, armed robbers, and child molesters, who are not subject to mandatory minimums...continue to full post

Full post as published by The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog on June 18, 2008 (boomark / email).