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womzillaOver on SameFacts ("The Reality-Based Community" group blog), Mark Kleiman linked to an excellent article from the Wall Street Journal (!) about how the police in High Point, North Carolina, permanently shut down an open-air crack market by, well, shaming the drug dealers into getting their lives into shape.
Two years later, the neighborhood is still free of "overt" drug-dealing. This is big news, because
a) overt drug dealing really is bad for neighborhoods, and
b) other approaches have never had much luck in really shutting overt markets down.
I'm in favor of complete legalization of recreational drugs (and broader access to pharmaceuticals in general, except for antibiotics) for a variety of reasons practical and moral. But even when you're enforcing a bad law, it matters whether you're doing it in ways that are better or worse.
In May 2004, after accumulating evidence in the West End, police chief James Fealy invited 12 suspected dealers to a meeting at the police station, with a promise that they wouldn't be arrested that night. Encouraged by their "influentials," nine showed up.
In one room, they met with about 30 clergy, social workers and other community members who confronted them with the harm they were doing, implored them to stop dealing, and offered them help. The suspects, however, "were slouching in their seats and one guy even seemed to be dozing off," recalls Don Stevenson, pastor of a local congregation, the First Reformed United Church of Christ. "Their attitude was, 'This is just another program and it will blow over.'"
Then the alleged dealers moved to a second room where they encountered a phalanx of law-enforcement officials: police, a district attorney, an assistant U.S. attorney, and representatives of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and others. Around the room hung poster-size photos of crack houses that had been the dealers' headquarters. In front of each alleged dealer was a binder, laying out the evidence against him or her. There were even arrest warrants, lacking only the signature of a judge.
Two years later, the neighborhood is still free of "overt" drug-dealing. This is big news, because
a) overt drug dealing really is bad for neighborhoods, and
b) other approaches have never had much luck in really shutting overt markets down.
Overt drug markets -- street-corner dealing, drug houses, and the like -- constitute one of the worst scourges of poor communities. Such markets foment violent clashes between dealers, as well as robbery by addicts desperate for drug money. Property values suffer. Businesses and families move out -- or avoid moving in. Many residents who remain feel under siege. Police often rely on sweeps -- mass arrests of street-level dealers -- to eradicate drug-related crime. But those rarely provide more than short-term relief.
I'm in favor of complete legalization of recreational drugs (and broader access to pharmaceuticals in general, except for antibiotics) for a variety of reasons practical and moral. But even when you're enforcing a bad law, it matters whether you're doing it in ways that are better or worse.
