by Ryan McKeen
A google friendly title if I’ve ever written one. The answer is it may depend in part on where you’re prosecuted. Of course there are a number of other of factors as well.
Combing through OLR Reports in search of topics, I came across this barn burner of a report: Drug Crime Sentences By Geographical Area by Soncia Coleman.
The data used in the report is admittedly flawed but interesting. It’s flawed in the sense that it does not distinguish between first and subsequent offenders. Along the same line’s it’s flawed because it uses averages. For example, if Bill Gates and I are the only two people in a bar, calculating our average income is meaningless.
Anyhow, here are some of the interesting conclusions of the report:
- For sale and possession of narcotics with intent to sell the average sentence for sale crimes ranged from a low of 371 days in Middletown to a high of 990 days in Enfield;
- The average sentence for narcotics possession crimes ranged from a low of 116 days in Manchester to a high of 352 days in Rockville. Fewer courts in the state are closer geographically to each other than Manchester and Rockville;
- For heroin, methodone and cocaine the average sentence ranged from 450 days in Bristol to 2,190 days in Bridgeport.
Check out the full report here. Some of the disparities between G.A.’s are quite large. Of course some of that can be blamed on the data itself and not necessarily on judicial or prosecutorial bias.