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FESTIVAL NEWS
Rockefeller Drug Laws Reformed
Many battles for social change are long fought. Activists and advocates can commit themselves to a cause years without seeing results, but this type of perseverance often eventually brings concrete change. Back in the second annual Media That Matters Film Festival, we celebrated Nina Rosenblum's Unintended Consequences, which tells the story of the devastating impact of New York State's Rockefeller Mandatory Minimum Drug Laws on families and communities. The film underscores the injustice of the laws -- activists insist that they are racist and ineffective. Unintended Consequences and other films about the criminal justice system like WITNESS's Books Not Bars, Gabriel London's No Escape, Prison Rape and Big Mouth Production's Deadline have been instrumental in educating the public and galvanizing activists around these issues. This month finally brought some changes in the oppressive laws -- the maximum sentence for criminal drug possession was changed from 25-years-to-life to eight-to-20-years! This was seen as a great triumph for long time activists like Randy Credico; however, reformers insist that there is still a lot of work to be done before the laws are truly just. You can take action now through Drop the Rock!Published on December 20, 2004
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