Passed during the height of the crack epidemic of the 1980s, drug-free school zone laws were designed to protect children from the activities of drug dealers and users.

The idea was simple: Dole out harsher sentences for people who commit drug crimes near schools. Connecticut's current school-zone law calls for mandatory minimum jail sentences for drug activity within 1,500 feet of the property boundary of a school, day-care center or public housing project.

The laws were primarily envisioned as a deterrent but, two decades after they were passed, arrests within drug-free zones have become commonplace in urban areas. Out of the 58 drug arrests in Meriden in May and June, for instance, 24 occurred in drug-free zones, according to arrest reports.

Critics say the size of the zones, as defined by law, is so large that it is not specific to the school or facility it is supposed to protect. The zones are more than 3,000 feet in diameter, covering eight to 10 city blocks, and apply to drug offenses in any part of that area at any time, such as a drug bust within a residence at 11 p.m. during the summer.

For a drug dealer, it means there is no difference if he or she sells drugs in front of a school or inside a house five blocks away, said state Rep. Michael Lawlor, D-East Haven, co-chairman of the state legislature's Judiciary Committee.

"If the goal of the law was to have a strong disincentive for any of this stuff to get near schools, that's been completely ruined," said Lawlor, a former prosecutor.

Lawlor, and a majority of Judiciary Committee members, support a bill that would reduce the size of the drug-free zones. The bill advanced through the committee this year but died without a further vote.

Defenders of the current law say it is not a bad thing that drug-free zones cover large swaths of land, since they apply to people who are breaking the law.

"The fact of the matter is it's still illicit activity," said state Rep. DebraLee Hovey, R-Newtown, a member of Judiciary Committee. "Bridgeport, Hartford, Stamford or Waterbury should be striving toward having zero tolerance."

Urban vs. suburban

But many critics say the law creates a disparity between urban and non-urban areas, despite its good intentions. Urban areas tend to be blanketed by overlapping drug-free zones, since schools and homes are packed together in high density. Drug-free areas only dot most suburban and rural towns, where buildings tend to be more spread out.

The town of Durham, for instance, had only four drug-free zones, as of a 2005 report.

Meriden's dense inner core, on the other hand, is almost all a drug-free zone, and larger cities like Bridgeport and Hartford are entirely covered.

The situation results in "a discriminatory impact on minorities and poor individuals who live in urban settings and people who live in urban environments," said Jennifer Zito, a Meriden defense attorney who has supported reducing the size of the zones.

In Wallingford, only one of 23 drug arrests, for instance - less than half of one percent - carried the additional school-zone charge for May and June, compared to Meriden's 41 percent.

The discriminatory impact, Zito said, could open the law to a constitutional challenge. It is also extremely rare that someone who gets charged with a school-zone violation actually tried to sell drugs to kids, Zito said.

In her 21 years in criminal defense, she has never had a client who was actually accused of selling drugs to children, she said.

Meanwhile, the school-zone law feeds people, especially from urban areas, into the criminal justice system, said Lorenzo Jones, executive director of the New Haven-based A Better Way Foundation, which is lobbying to change the statute.

"The school-zone law is like a sledgehammer trying to kill a fly, but you keep missing the fly," he said. "Every time you miss the fly, you hit a home, you hit a community."

The law has the following get-tough mandatory minimum sentences: One year for possessing drug paraphernalia within 1,500 feet of a school, day-care center or public housing project; three years for selling drugs in such a zone; two years for drug possession.

Those prison terms, however, are rarely meted out, since prosecutors typically toss out drug-zone charges during the plea bargaining process. Prosecutors usually drop or "nolle" the charge when they secure guilty pleas on lesser charges.

Someone facing such a drug-free-zone charge is "more apt to take a worse deal" from the prosecutor in order to avoid the mandatory minimum sentence, Zito said. That means drug offenders in urban areas end up with harsher penalties than those in the suburbs for the same crimes, she said.

Connecticut prosecutors tossed out 2,612 of the 3,106 drug-free-zone charges pressed from July 2008 to June 2009. Of the remainder, 474 were dismissed, 12 were not prosecuted and one was found not guilty, leaving just seven convictions statewide, according to the state Judicial Branch.

There were no convictions in Meriden Superior Court over that period. Prosecutors dropped 65 out of 74 drug-free-zone charges; eight were dismissed and one was not prosecuted.

"Oftentimes the sentence that can and will be imposed on the underlying charges, such as a simple sale, is certainly sufficient to serve the interest of the public," said Chief State's Attorney Kevin T. Kane. "Sometimes it depends on the facts and circumstances of the case."

Changing the law

Members of the Judiciary Committee have made multiple attempts to revise the drug-free-zone laws. In April, the committee voted 23-17 in favor of a bill that would reduce the size of drug-free zones to 200 feet. The bill, however, was not taken up on the floor of the legislature.

The measure also would have given judges discretion to suspend the required prison sentences and stated that the drug-free zones would only be in effect during school hours or during school-sponsored activities where students are present.

Changing the law, however, is a hard sell, because it could be perceived as an effort to get soft on crime, Zito said. But she and Lawlor argue that tailoring the zones more closely to school areas would make them effective deterrents.

Lawlor said the bill considered this year was intended to get discussion going on the subject. Lawmakers requested a nonpartisan racial impact statement on the bill. It was the first time the General Assembly has requested a statement about legislation's impact on race, Lawlor said.

The statement, by the Office of Legislative Research, found that the measure could reduce racial disparities among incarcerated people but that the extent of its impact was unclear because of limited information.

Kane, the state's top prosecutor, said he has not been opposed to an effort to rework the law. As it stands today, Kane said, the law does blanket entire cities, leaving few spaces that are not drug-free zones.

But Kane added he would be opposed to any effort to limit the drug-free law to school hours only, since there are student events after typical school hours.

State Sen. Paul Doyle, D-Wethersfield, said he voted against this year's bill because he did not like the language that would give judges discretion in sentencing. Shrinking the drug-free zones would also make for a drastic reduction in drug-free areas in suburban communities, he said. It also sends the wrong message to drug dealers.

Hovey said she would consider reducing the size of the zones, but going from 1,500 feet to 200 feet is too extreme. Additionally, she said, applying the school-zone law only during certain times of day undermines the special nature of school areas.

"Children and families should feel safe in a school zone 365 days a year," she said.

The drug-free-zone law is a valuable protection for school areas, said Robert Angeli, associate superintendent for instruction in Meriden.

"From the school system point of view, we certainly are appreciative of the fact that there are areas surrounding our schools that have been identified as drug-free zones," he said. "Student involvement in drugs is detrimental to the learning process."

And Angeli questioned whether it's a bad thing, from an educational perspective, that drug-free zones extend over wider areas.

Tina Valentin, director of the YMCA Childcare Center on Crown Street in Meriden, said she feels more secure knowing that there is a drug-free zone around the facility. But she said it would help if there were some signs posted about it.

"I have none," she said, "and that's actually why I think a lot of people don't realize it."

gmoore@record-journal.com

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