New York City
'Drop the Rock!'
By Sara Catalinotto
New York
On May 8 at noon, about 200 people rallied in front of Gov.
George Pataki's Manhattan office to demand repeal of the
Rockefeller drug laws that feed the prison-industrial complex
and tear apart families while doing nothing to cure substance
abuse or stop drug profiteering. Chanting, "Drop the Rock,"
demonstrators held placards with pictures and slogans of people
now serving long prison sentences for minor drug possession
charges.
The state has many ways to prey on people suffering from
drug addiction, including entrapment. Even bystanders who are
not drug users have been caught in the vicious web of sweeping
drug arrests. Mandatory minimum sentences under these laws can
mean that first-time offenders could spend decades in jail.
The laws' overall racist character can be seen in the
statistics: African American and Latino people make up 94
percent of those jailed under these laws, while the use and
sale of drugs is much more evenly distributed among all
nationalities.
Some speakers at the rally characterized their growing
movement as the "civil rights movement of the 21st
century."
Speakers and delegations represented various churches,
community-based substance abuse recovery programs, and
organizations for relatives of the incarcerated. The related
issue of a lack of alternatives to prison for mothers who are
convicted of non-violent crimes was raised by the Mothers in
Prison-Children in Crisis National Campaign, whose members
played a tape recording of a crying baby to dramatize the
suffering of the laws' innocent victims.
Under capitalism it is a crime to be poor, but not a crime
to profit off captive labor at prison factories and
switchboards. Anyone can show their support for the Drop the
Rock campaign by attending the next major New York City event
on June 15. This will include a rally outside the Harlem State
Office Building at 12 noon and a concert in Marcus Garvey
Park.
Reprinted from the May 23, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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