Efforts to reform New York's harsh Rockefeller-era drug laws and free inmates serving long drug sentences helped major drug traffickers more than low-level offenders, a New York City anti-drug official contends.

The New York Times reported June 27 that Bridget G. Brennan, the city's special prosecutor for narcotics, said that of the 65 drug offenders prosecuted by her office who successfully appealed their sentences under the reformed law, 22 were what Brennan called "kingpins," "major traffickers," or leaders of international drug organizations. Of these, 16 were freed from lifetime parole, and 4 were released from prison.

"I think there was a misperception that the people serving these sentences were low-level nonviolent offenders," she said. "Or that they were unsophisticated naifs who were caught up and manipulated by a drug organization."

The study looked at about a quarter of all inmates released since the Drug Reform Act of 2004 went into effect, but reform advocates said that Brennan only looked at the most serious of the 446 offenders sentenced to life terms under the Rockefeller-era laws.

"Three-quarters of the resentencing would have been handled by local district attorneys, where, by definition, you would have people who were involved less higher up on the food chain," said Robert Gangi, executive director of the Correctional Association of New York.

Gangi added that while few of those serving life sentences were low-level offenders, there are 14,500 less-serious offenders in the state prison system who were not impacted by the 2004 reform law. Reformers want further legislation to address these cases.

But Brennan contends that the reform law gives too much power to judges. "It's not that I think the reform should be completely rolled back, but I think the public needs to be aware of who this applied to. I just don't think it fits the stereotype a lot of people have," she said.