The NYCLU and the Correctional Association of New York point out that the Assembly proposal leaves the basic sentencing structure intact and actually narrows eligibility for treatment and rehabilitation programs. There's also the danger that these initiatives, like limited reforms passed in previous years, will rob momentum from the grassroots opposition movement and yield few meaningful changes.

In the official rhetoric surrounding the reform question, racial issues--namely the overwhelming disproportionality in sentencing patterns--have made a quiet stir. Money may talk much louder. Activists are pushing the argument that New York can save major public dollars through reforms that deemphasize mass incarceration while reinvesting in community-based alternatives.

We'll see if the appeal to reason and immediate budget anxieties spurs Albany to act. On a national level, though, shifting the paradigm on the war on drugs and criminal justice policy means confronting head-on the racial, political and economic inequalities that gird these systems.

Image: Drop the Rock