She grappled with social and emotional isolation, with illness and financial hardship, and she faced the tensions at home that are common between parents and teenagers…but she did so single handedly.

In this segment, Alison describes how she met Jay, how she reacted at his sentencing, and how she struggled to raise their special needs child during his incarceration:

Related:

Jay Coleman Previously in the series: Part I: A long journey from petty criminal to husband and father. Part II: Parenting by phone. Part III: Watching your children grow up from behind prison bars”>video interviews.

An editorial in the New York Times notes that the New York Legislature finally seems poised to overturn the infamous Rockefeller drug laws. The impending change comes too late for the tens of thousands of low-level, nonviolent drug offenders who wasted away in prison because of mandatory sentencing policies when they should have been given treatment and leniency. But after years of building support for reform, legislative leaders now have it within their power to make wholesale changes in this profoundly destructive law.

Read the rest of the editorial here.

Enacted in 1973 by then-governor Nelson Rockefeller, the tough on crime statues established mandatory minimum sentences for drug-related offenses, limiting judicial discretion on the length and type of sentences handed out. Last year more than 20% of new inmates, or roughly 12,000 prisoners in the New York state correctional system were committed for drug-related offenses. Over the last 35 years, hundreds of thousands of offenders have been sentenced under these laws.

In 2004, in response to questions about both the laws’ efficacy , and their ability to distinguish between kingpins and addicts requiring treatment, the Drug Law Reform Act was introduced. Yet, while some mandatory minimums were lowered, the lack of judicial discretion remained unchanged.

This past May, on the 35th anniversary of the laws’ enactment, public hearings convened by six assembly committees reopened the question of their reform. With a Democratic majority senate around the corner, some anti-Rockefeller groups are looking forward not only in the laws’ repeal, but also to a new approach to drug-related sentencing.

“The changes in Albany are something that we have anticipated for some time. There’s near universal agreement that they’ll be scrapped. The question is what type of drug policy should New York State have to replace the Rockefeller drug regime,” said Gabriel Sayegh of the Drug Policy Alliance, and group that advocates for the laws’ repeal.

The May hearing’s emphasis on drug treatment and alternatives to incarceration is indicative, said Sayegh, of what will likely replace the Rockefeller laws.

“A public health approach to drug policy might be an indication of where we are going nationally. Health providers have been very vocal that using incarceration as a response to addiction is not only patently wrong, but immoral.”

It is also expensive. In 2001, the cost to New York State per inmate was nearly $37,000, or 35% higher than the national average, according to the Justice Department’s National Institute of Corrections. Critics of the laws anticipate the state’s fiscal emergency will encourage many lawmakers to re-examine less costly alternatives to incarceration, such as addiction-treatment.

“We think that the time is more right that ever for moving on reform given the state’s fiscal crisis,” said Gangi. “Repealing the Rockefeller drug laws would save the state millions if not hundreds of millions of dollars.”

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS: How has your family been affected by the Rockefeller drug laws?

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Ria Julien is a student at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. She has worked on prison issues as a book editor and organizer.