9/13/2023 0 Comments Little compton drug bust![]() ![]() She added that this occurred despite the overwhelmingly white composition of the state and the similar drug usage rates among white people and people of color. She said that 658 out of the 1,111 simple drug possession arrests in Rhode Island in 2019 were of people of color. Haley McKee is the co-chair and co-founder of the Substance Use Policy, Education and Recovery PAC, which wrote and lobbied for the original version of this legislation. State Senate Majority Leader Michael McCaffrey (D-Warwick), who introduced the bill, said that a treatment-based approach is more cost-effective than criminalization, as Rhode Island spends roughly $100,000 per year to incarcerate one person.Īssociate Professor of Epidemiology Brandon Marshall praised the law as “one step toward addressing racial (and) ethnic inequities in our criminal justice and public health systems,” emphasizing that people of color are arrested and incarcerated more frequently for drug crimes and receive more severe sentences than white people. “These cases just didn’t warrant felony conduct.” “If you were going to be facing the consequences of a felony conviction, that ought to be something serious enough to warrant felony treatment,” Neronha said. He added that public health experts view two years of supervision as “more appropriate,” given that most people require more than a year to complete substance use disorder treatment.Īccording to Neronha’s own research, out of the 400 or 500 personal-use felony cases involving fentanyl in a five-year time frame, only one to three people were sentenced to time in jail, and none of these sentences exceeded roughly 30 days. “The maximum penalty often defines how long the court can have supervision over somebody,” he said. But Neronha clarified that the logic behind this is not to prolong jail sentences. The new law allows for a maximum penalty ot two years of jail time, which is double the one-year maximum of most misdemeanors. The new statute applies to amounts of 10 grams or less and includes fentanyl, heroin and cocaine.Īttorney General Peter Neronha said he views the misdemeanor charges less as punishments and more as pathways to get people with substance use disorders into treatment. 28 that reduces personal-use possession charges for certain controlled substances from felonies to misdemeanors. ![]() Dan McKee signed a bill into law on Sept.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |