TRENTON -- Democratic lawmakers yesterday called for reevaluation of the state’s mandatory sentencing guidelines for drug offenders.

"Such sentencing is nothing short of feel-good anti-crime policy-making," Assemblyman Wilfredo Caraballo, a Democrat from Newark said yesterday. "At a time when the state is facing a potential $4-billion budget deficit, New Jersey needs to get smart on crime instead of tough on crime."

Caraballo got the support of the senate judiciary committee chairman yesterday, who called for a reassessment of mandatory minimum sentences.

"We’re too quick to put people in prison," said Sen. John Adler, D-Cherry Hill. "We could save their futures and our money by requiring them to get treatment instead of packing them off to prison."

Adler and Caraballo were reacting to a poll released yesterday by Washington-based special interest group Families Against Mandatory Minimums.

The poll, conducted by Rutgers/Eagleton Institute of Politics, reported 69 percent of respondents preferred mandatory drug treatment and community service sentences over the 21 percent who prefer mandatory prison time for drug offenders.

"The old slogan about locking up criminals and throwing away the key just doesn’t cut it anymore here in the 21st century," Caraballo said yesterday.

"We need to get smarter about the way we apply mandatory minimum sentences ... we should reassess our drug sentencing policies."

After releasing the results of the poll, FAMM officials called on lawmakers to rescind the mandatory minimum prison sentences.

"New Jerseyans have confidence in judges’ ability to sentence low-level, non-violent drug offenders appropriately ... they support reducing the prison budget, reducing the cost of incarcerations by using alternatives for sentencing and giving the judges the ability to decide how the punishment should fit the crime and the individual," said Laura Sager, FAMM national campaign director.

How to combat the war on drugs in New Jersey is a divisive issue, according to the poll, as 44 percent of respondents say the state is doing a good job in handling drug crimes, while 39 percent of respondents think the state is doing a bad job.

Mary Burke, formerly of Readington Township in Hunterdon County, yesterday complained that her son Brian has been permanently branded after serving jail time for a minor drug offense under the state’s mandatory minimum sentence guidelines.

"I never knew how damaging New Jersey’s drug laws could be until I learned the hard way," Burke said yesterday. "Instead of attending college, Brian served prison time for a first offense selling marijuana ..We worried about him every day he was in, and now that he’s out, we struggle and he bears the stigma of being a felon at such a young age."

Many lawmakers were reluctant to comment on the poll without having an opportunity to scrutinize the results.