The Rockefeller drug laws are a set of New York MANDATORY SENTENCING statutes for drug crimes. They were proposed by New York's Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller in reaction to a HEROIN epidemic in his state. These laws, which took effect on September 1, 1973, require that judges impose lengthy prison sentences on drug traffickers, with a large category of drug offenders receiving life imprisonment. The goal was to deter people from both drug use and trafficking by imposing tough and certain punishments. Although the law was immediately challenged as violating the Cruel and Unusual Punishment clause of the U.S. and New York constitutions, the New York Court of Appeals unanimously upheld the law

Within a few years, however, the state's prison population began to swell, as increasing numbers of defendants were subjected to the provisions of the Rockefeller laws. From 1969 to 1979, the prison population doubled...