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April 4, 2006

Group criticizes mandatory minimum drug sentences

PROVIDENCE -- Community leaders and legislators were to meet at the State House this afternoon to criticize mandatory minimum drug sentences.

Since the sentencing policy was enacted in the 1980s, Rhode Island's minority populations have been disproportionately penalized, contends Direct Action for Rights and Equality, a Providence nonprofit organization hosting today's press conference.

The group decided to hold an event, on the anniversary of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, to highlight the ways mandatory minimum sentencing fuels racial disparities in the state's prison population, according to a statement.

Posted by Steve Peoples  at 3:55 PM | Permalink

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