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Could our enforcement institutions be waking up to the notion that filling prisons will not win the war on drugs?

A recent Wall Street Journal story (reprinted here in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) describes a new policing strategy being used in High Point, NC, Charlotte, NC, and Newburgh, NY. Rather than conducting a sting that nets one dealer and does nothing to curb violent crime, police are trying a mix of pressure from community members and threats of criminal enforcement to convince dealers to stay off the street.

The article details the strategy used to clear out an open-air drug market in High Point, NC: The police amassed a lot of evidence against several dealers, then invited them to a meeting at the police station, promising not to arrest them. Community members were instrumental in convincing them to actually show up.

At the station, the suspected dealers talked with community members such as clergy and social workers, and then were shown the massive amount of evidence assembled against them, including unsigned arrest warrants. The message was essentially, "Stop dealing right now, or your goose is cooked."

The police chief reported that the drug market closed down the very next day, after 15 years of operation. Violent crime went down, and has stayed down after two years. The article cites the experiences of a couple people who were targeted by the initiative, who have found steady jobs and are staying on track thanks to support and a watchful eye from community members.

From the article:

The initiative hasn't eradicated illegal drug use -- and it doesn't aim to. "This is not a war on drugs," says Chief Fealy. Rather, he says, the goal is to shut down overt drug markets because "street-level dope-dealing is what drives a significant amount of crime."

This is not to say that this is the most enlightened strategy--after all, if there were no black market for these substances, the accompanying violent crime would become a non-issue, rendering intimidation tactics unnecessary.

But looking at enforcement through the lens of protecting and empowering a community is certainly an improvement over a preoccupation with punishing individuals.

Read the article for numbers on the success of this initiative. I found the whole thing fascinating and am curious to see what happens if the strategy becomes more widespread.

Posted by Megan Farrington.
http://www.nooked.com/news/itemtrack...0df5b1a5cc1c61

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Buzzby

I bet all of those drug dealers prefer to sell their drugs indoors, anyway!

All this tactic accomplishes is to move the dealing indoors or to a different neighborhood. The demand is still there, the profitability is still there, and the prohibition which supports the profitability is still there. If a few dealers decide to hang up their spurs, there will be new dealers to replace them within a few days. There is simply too much money to be made for this not to happen.

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