We added Maureen Turner's Valley Advocate article Rethinking Drug-Free School Zones: Gov. Patrick proposes changing a policy critics say is unfair and ineffective to our PPI in the News page and to the page about our sentencing enhancement zone work.
by Peter Wagner,
February 14, 2011
We added Maureen Turner’s Valley Advocate article Rethinking Drug-Free School Zones: Gov. Patrick proposes changing a policy critics say is unfair and ineffective to our PPI in the News page and to the page about our sentencing enhancement zone work.
Letter to the editor of the Boston Herald in response to “Going soft on crime,” published Jan. 28 2011.
by Peter Wagner,
February 4, 2011
Letter to the editor published in the Boston Herald on February 4, 2011.
Your editorial on the governor’s sentencing bill (“Going soft on crime,” Jan. 28) notes that when it comes to the school zone law, “in a city like Boston it’s pretty hard not to be within 1,000 feet on a school.” As a researcher who has studied the state’s school zone law, I agree. And that’s the problem.
The 1,000 foot distance is itself a flaw. That distance— greater than the length of three football fields— has created school zones so large that few people know the boundaries. Which means that the zones don’t drive drug activity away from children, as intended.
The governor’s bill would reduce school zones to 100 feet of a school or its property, which is the same size as the drug-free zones drawn around parks and playgrounds. A tightly drawn drug-free zone has a greater deterrent effect. His bill also keeps the mandatory minimum stench for school zone offenses and retains two other vital laws that requite mandatory sentences for selling drugs to minors or using them in drug transactions. The governor’s proposal is not soft on crime. It’s smart.
Peter Wagner,
Executive Director
Prison Policy Initiative
Northampton
by Peter Wagner,
January 18, 2011
Eric Weld has an article about Peter Wagner’s course at Smith College: Interterm Course Focuses on U.S. Prison System in the Gate.
by Peter Wagner,
May 9, 2010
Peter Wagner is quoted in the Patriot Ledger regarding Mass.’s plan to bill prison inmates for room and board. Because most people in prison are poor, this counter-productive policy “is like spending money to squeeze blood from a stone.”
Added Most upstate counties with prisons agree: A prison cell is not a residence [PDF] to the New York organizing page.
by Peter Wagner,
February 14, 2010
Added Most upstate counties with prisons agree: A prison cell is not a residence [PDF] to the New York organizing page.
by Peter Wagner,
January 19, 2010
We added links to recent radio interviews on WBAI, The Take Away and shows to our In the News page.
by Peter Wagner,
January 15, 2010
Matt Kelley cites PPI’s research on sentencing enhancement zones in a post saluting New Jersey’s first-in-the-nation reform of these short-sighted laws.
The Valley Advocate honors us on a best of 2009 list.
by Peter Wagner,
December 31, 2009
The Valley Advocate salutes the Prison Policy Initiative for how far we stretch your generous contributions.
The Valley Advocate honors us on a best of 2009 list.
by Peter Wagner,
November 25, 2009
The Nonprofit Voter Engagement Network has twice featured our work on their blog in the last week or so. One article by George Pillsbury features our research on Mississippi, and another on our work behind the New York Times‘ Gerrymandering: Pure and Corrupt editorial.
