Cleaning up the ’hood Cleaning up the ’hood

[frigidmagi]

Economist

POLICE watched seven people sell drugs in Marshall Courts and Seven Oaks, two districts in south-eastern Newport News, in Virginia. They built strong cases against them. They shared that information with prosecutors. But then the police did something unusual: they sent the seven letters inviting them to police headquarters for a talk, promising that if they came they would not be arrested. Three came, and when they did they met not only police and prosecutors, but also family members, people from their communities, pastors from local churches and representatives from social-service agencies. Their neighbours and relatives told them that dealing drugs was hurting their families and communities. The police showed them the information they had gathered, and they offered the seven a choice: deal again, and we will prosecute you. Stop, and these people will help you turn your lives around.

This approach is known as drug-market intervention (DMI). It was first used in High Point, North Carolina, in 2004 and since then has been tried in more than 30 cities and counties. It is the brainchild of David Kennedy, a criminologist at John Jay College in New York, who thinks that “the most troubled communities can survive the public-health and family issues that come with even the highest levels of addiction. They can’t survive the community impact that comes with overt drug markets”—by which he means markets that draw outsiders to the neighbourhood. Once these are entrenched, a range of problems follow: not just drug use and sales, but open prostitution, muggings, robberies, declining property values, and the loss of businesses and safe public spaces.

Traditional drugs policing targets both users and dealers. This poses three main problems. First, low-level dealers are eminently replaceable: arrest two and another two will quickly take their places, with little if any interruption to sales. Second, it tends to promote antagonism between the police and the mostly poor communities where drug markets are found. Arrests can seem random: only one in every 15,000 cocaine transactions, for instance, results in prison time, but those other 14,999 sales are just as illegal as that one. In some neighbourhoods, prison is the norm, or at least common, for young men. Police come to be seen as people who take sons, brothers and fathers away while the neighbourhood remains unchanged. Third, prison as a deterrent does not work. If it did, America would be the safest country on earth.

Shutting down markets, on the other hand, removes the conditions that let crime flourish. Drug sales may still occur in poor neighbourhoods, just as they do in wealthy ones, but they do so behind closed doors, and they do not have the same bad effect on community life.

And restoring community life is DMI’s main objective. After the first call-in, police maintain a visible presence in the targeted neighbourhood. Recalcitrant dealers are arrested and swiftly prosecuted (two of the four no-shows in Newport News have been arrested; the other two are fugitives). Complaints by citizens are dealt with speedily, to let locals see that the police respond and want to keep the area safe. That, in turn, makes locals more likely to call the police with complaints. James Fox, chief of police in Newport News, says that without locals “acting as our eyes and ears”, DMI would not work.

It is still too early to forecast success, but on a recent weekday afternoon Marshall Courts and Seven Oaks were quiet and peaceful. Children played outside and people sat out on their porches. High Point’s market was shut down eight years ago. It has still not reopened.

Time will tell if this works, but I hope it does. The constant effort of arrest and crackdowns have produce little if any results to be proud of.

[rhoenix]

Attacking the problem at its source. I think this is both creative and brilliant.

[B4UTRUST]

While I wish the people well and hope they stay clean and stop selling, I know those areas. They're some of the absolute worst in Newport News. And Newport News, quite frankly, is mostly a shithole city. There's areas that I refuse to go work in because of issues of safety for myself and my vehicle and equipment. That's just the way it is in Newport News. You're either there with the military, at the shipyard or in the ghetto it seems. This is a great idea and all, but even if these guys stop, there's a dozen more to replace them. And chances are they won't stop. Not for long at any rate.

[rhoenix]

Well, at least this solution attacks the problem closer to its source, than its symptoms. Most of the people in that sort of life are there because they don't see any other way to pay the bills. Some probably are there for the "glamor" of the job, but probably not many.

So, you alter the incentives for people there. Make sure you listen to them, and then try to alter the environmental variables to make it more probable (and/or likely) for people to get legitimate jobs, while reconstructing the sense of community of area so often absent in the poorer neighborhoods.

[Josh]

Legalization and restoration of community policing for crimes of theft and murder, etc. is our miserable best course. This is essentially a recognition that drug distribution can't be stopped, and what really needs to be understood is that the damage to our law enforcement structures that have come from adopting a war mindset in policing. Cops aren't soldiers, cops shouldn't be cultivated to think like soldiers.

Drug business sucks, drug usage sucks, but in attempting to militantly curtail it, we've damned ourselves to the acceptance of no-knock searches, SWAT teams kitted out like some approximation of combat infantry, and Sheriff Arpaio jackboot bullshit.

So... as a stopgap measure since ending prohibition and the War on Drugs isn't politically viable (and may never be) a program like this may be our best answer. The main downside I can see here is that if they package this with subsidies to get these guys going in regular life, it'll become a cash cow program that'll be milked for all its worth. And without a financial incentive, a lot of guys aren't going to come out of the life- there's no regular work that can match the cash flow they get from dealing.

[LadyTevar]

Unfortunately you hit the nail on the head, Josh. Drugs are a cash cow. They make more money in a single deal than in a week (or more) of a real job. Part of this is the lack of good-paying jobs, part of it is the shitty-ass pay of what jobs there are. There is also the "white-man-sellout" mentality that hobbles anyone trying to better themselves and get out of the Lifestyle.

The best image I've heard of ghetto life is it's a Crab-bucket. Everyone's trying to get out, but those getting to the top are being pulled back down by the ones stuck on the bottom.

[frigidmagi]

Actually guys, studies have shown that the street level drug dealer on average makes about minimum wage. The people he buys from make most of the money.

In alot of cases, it happens that there are damn few if any jobs around to compete with becoming a drug dealer and well... It is a growth industry, always room for one more.

[Josh]

You have to look past the street level, though. The street level guys see the guys further up the ladder with the cars and the women and a certain amount of power. The game is that you do your time, take your lumps, and some day maybe you'll be that guy. Work at McDonalds and the best prospect you seem to have is that someday you'll be the manager- working longer hours, a bit more pay, and still gotta wear the goofy shirt. There's no other jobs in these areas that offer the same possibility of upward mobility for minimal educational credentials.