Stimulus Funds to Help Reform Drug Offenders ROCHESTER, NY (WXXI) - Monroe County will receive $296,000 to help it reform drug offenders who would have gone to jail under the state's old Rockefeller drug laws.

A reform effort signed into law last spring, coupled with a helping of stimulus money, will divert more offenders into supervised release and drug treatment.

Monroe County probation administrator Bob Burns says the stimulus money will help in multiple ways.

"For public safety, if these individuals are not going to be in state prison, the stimulus money for probation is designed to provide as good a level of supervision in the community as we can possibly have," he says. "But it's also a benefit to the offenders ... having the attention and the support of a probation officer."

Burns says the funds are also creating new jobs locally in the probation department and at a new court being set up for drug offenders.

The county legislature still has to vote to formally accept the stimulus funds at its meeting on November 10. If it does, the dollars will be used to fill two probation officer vacancies for at least two years.

That will allow two senior officers to move into new roles, working with offenders who would have gone to jail under the Rockefeller laws.

Those officers will have lower case loads than probation officers ordinarily do, and be able to more vigilant about offenders' activities.

New York's Rockefeller Drug Laws were instituted in the 1970s and placed harsh sentences on drug offenders, on par with second degree murder charges.

The laws have been reformed before but were modified extensively to roll back mandatory minimum sentences and push more offenders into treatment this year. © Copyright 2009, WXXI