Seven Neighborhood Action Partnership (SNAP)

The Seven Neighborhood Action Partnership (SNAP) evolved from the Interfaith Partnership for Criminal Justice (IFP) as a result of a three-year strategic plan begun in June 2001. SNAP is designed to work with community members in the neighborhoods most impacted by unjust New York State criminal justice policies to advocate for the repeal of the Rockefeller Drug Laws and justice in communities. The Rockefeller Drug Laws, enacted in New York State in 1973, are among the harshest in the country mandating sentences of 15 years to life for the sale of two ounces or the possession of four ounces of a narcotic substance. It took 32 years for the legislature to begin to muster the political will to reform these racist laws, and although the changes in December 2004 and September 2005 are small steps in the right direction, it is only a beginning. We continue to work for their repeal and not a so-called reform that continue to trap, warehouse and exploit our communities.

Since the fall of 2001, SNAP has successfully conducted several well-attended community speak-outs and educational forums on the Rockefeller Drug Laws and has organized extensive community outreach through tabling and door to door leafleting. We also work to rebuild the fabric of our communities, by looking at and building alternatives to incarceration, listening to each other, talking about our problems with each other and working to build community solutions to conflict.

Many concerned residents (rather than citizens) who live, work or worship in East Harlem, Harlem, Washington Heights, the South Bronx and East New York, as well as formerly incarcerated persons and their families, are active in the movement. These volunteers include civic leaders, human services professionals, clients of treatment programs, community organizers, members of communities of faith and tenants' associations.

SNAP developed and implemented a youth component during the summer of 2005 to heal from the effects of these racist, classist, misogynist and homophobic laws and to quicken the day of their repeal. Ten young people composed the first SNAP Youth Group called Fighters for Justice. They learned about the Rockefeller Drug Laws, what addiction really is, what are adequate responses to it, how the police and the Prison Industrial Complex target communities and how to resist oppression in all its forms. At the end of the summer program, five young people were selected to continue during the fall and spring, to do presentations, conduct outreach and participate in the community movement to repeal the Rockefeller Drug Laws. We are also working hard in building community alternatives to deal with conflict in our communities.

If you would like to contribute to these efforts, or have a workshop or presentation for your group, please contact Rafael at 212.348.7391 or at ramutis@earthlink.net.