Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick has signed into law a bill that revises the state’s mandatory drug laws and enacts a Three Strikes rule, making an offender convicted of three violent crimes ineligible for parole, according to Reuters.
Crimes that will be counted as strikes include murder, rape, armed robbery, manslaughter, incest, assault with serious bodily injury, assault with intent to murder, attempted murder, kidnapping, inducing a minor into prostitution, and child pornography, according to the article.
“The bill will put more people in prison and keep them longer at a price tag of nearly $50,000 per prisoner each year,” said Carole Rose, executive director of the ACLU of Massachusetts in an interview with the Telegram & Gazette. “We need to repeal mandatory sentencing, not expand it,” she added.
Mandatory sentences will be given to first, second and additional offenses for distribution or possession with intent to distribute heroin, cocaine, marijuana and other illegal drugs, according to the report.
The area of school zones for drug sales would be reduced from the current 1,000 feet to 300 feet and the bill eliminates application of sentences for such crimes in school zones between midnight and 5 a.m., according to the report.
The bill also contains a retroactive provision allowing some inmates currently serving mandatory drug sentences to apply for re-sentencing, which Patrick said would allow nearly 600 prisoners to be paroled, according to Reuters.
