Forty years ago, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller launched his campaign for what came to be known as the Rockefeller drug laws. Rockefeller wanted tough prison sentences, even for low-level drug dealers and addicts. It was an idea that quickly spread, influencing state and Federal law across the US.

In the decades since, the nation’s prison population has grown seven-fold, with more than 2 million men and women now behind bars. Over the next year, North Country Public Radio in cooperation with NPR and other member stations will look at ways the Rockefeller laws changed America and the North Country, from their impact on race relations to the growth of a booming national prison industry.

Check out the Prison Time blog http://prisontime.org/ and listen to some of their reports.

Here is the link to the web-page: http://www.npr.org/series/172010878/prison-time-the-legacy-and-future-of-mass-incarceration-in-america

Here is the kick-off piece: http://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/story/21316/20130124/how-the-rockefeller-drug-laws-changed-america

Also available at: http://www.npr.org/2013/02/14/171822608/the-drug-laws-that-changed-how-we-punish