HARTFORD—State Rep. Cecilia Buck-Taylor has voted against a controversial proposal that would scrap the enhanced criminal penalty for possessing drugs in school zones and relax the penalty for the possession of drugs such as crack cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin from a felony to a simple misdemeanor.
The bill, S.B. 952, is Gov. Malloy’s “Second Chance Society” proposal, and the legislature’s Judiciary Committee approved it in a close vote early Friday after Buck-Taylor and House Republicans quizzed its proponents on the logic of slapping people on the wrist for possessing the hardest of addictive drugs.
“The deeply flawed sales pitch on this bill is that it fixes a problem, that it’s a step toward preventing people from being locked up for a minor drug crime,” said Buck-Taylor, who serves New Milford’s 67th House District. “The reality, though, is that an overwhelming majority of people incarcerated for lesser drug crimes landed themselves in that position by accepting plea deals to avoid more significant charges.”
A person arrested for a drug offense, Buck-Taylor said, receives multiple chances at avoiding time behind bars through an assortment of drug treatment and jail diversion programs.
“This ‘second chance’ that the governor describes is, in most cases, a fourth or fifth chance,” she said.
Buck-Taylor and House Republicans have previously blocked efforts to reduce the size of drug free zones around schools, day care centers and even senior housing. But this time around, with strong support from the governor, the plan to eliminate the enhanced penalty for possession in a school zone has real steam.
“Plain and simple, the folks behind this bill are sending the wrong message to both children and the drug abusers and pushers their parents try to protect them from,” Buck-Taylor said. “In their view of the world, a guy with heroin and needles in his fanny pack standing on a street corner across from a middle school isn’t as big of a deal as it used to be—it’s a ‘tsk, tsk’ kind of offense.”
Critics of the governor’s Second Chance Society as well as his other criminal justice reforms contend his moves are nothing more than thinly-veiled attempts at saving the state money in tight times.
“Like a lot of constituents I talk to, I’m all for saving money,” Buck-Taylor said. “But at the expense of public safety? At the expense of a child’s future? I don’t know anyone who has asked for that.”