Can We Cope with Drugs?
Massing, Michael
A Few Modest Proposals In announcing his resignation last fall as drug czar, William Bennett asserted that the nation had turned the corner in the war on drugs. President Bush concurred. "We're...
...It doesn't matter whether the club specifically offers drug-prevention programs...
...WOMAN: Well, let me tell you...
...He has trouble reading, and there aren't many decent jobs available anyway, so he's taken up with a gang...
...Squads of police officers swooped into drug-infested neighborhoods, arresting every suspiciouslooking person in sight...
...As drug czar, William Bennett forever touted the role of community groups in fighting drugs...
...Shattered by years of abandonment and neglect, these areas have SPRING • 1991 • 239 Drugs—Can We Cops...
...Each neighborhood throughout the City will have one or more police officers assigned to it for the purpose of developing relationships with the area residents and becoming sensitive to their particular needs and problems," the mayor's plan stated...
...Yes, but only if we take a far more innovative approach...
...Basketball leagues, dance classes, field trips—all can help set inner-city kids on a more constructive path...
...If this be success, may we please be spared failure...
...Drug dealers have repeatedly shown their readiness to attack anyone who threatens their livelihood...
...With nothing to do, they've very vulnerable...
...Whatever we do, we do on a shoestring," says director Brooks, a former police officer...
...In the opposite corner from the legalizers is the law-and-order crowd...
...My welfare money for the month's about to run out, and I don't have enough food for my little girl...
...Unless the police can guarantee neighborhood residents some measure of safety, many will remain reluctant to get involved...
...He comes home at all hours of the night, and I'm worried he's going to get shot...
...financial priorities, chaired by Alice Rivlin of the Brookings Institution, reached a similar conclusion: "Increasing the number of officers appears to relocate rather than eliminate crime...
...Washington has experienced a remarkable surge in grass-roots organizing in recent years, with more than sixty groups on line...
...You don't have to be a neoconservative like Wilson to find some appeal in this approach...
...Anchored by a rundown housing project, Valley Green was infested with drug dealers, with shootouts an almost daily occurrence...
...One possible approach is outlined in a recent report by the Milton S. Eisenhower Foundation...
...Whereas traditional policing reacts to crimes once they are committed, COP seeks to prevent crime by addressing the conditions that breed it...
...Drug abuse did not disappear, of course...
...Last summer, District officials appealed to Congress for help, but, given the nation's financial condition, such a sum was deemed out of the question...
...Community-based organizations can create effective strategies to reduce crime and drug abuse in inner cities," the report states, but only if they "reach well beyond the immediate symptoms . . . to address the deeper problems of the surrounding community, and particularly the multiple needs of disadvantaged youth...
...Washington, D.C., is a good example...
...Drawing on these resources, the District in 1986 launched an ambitious enforcement campaign called Operation Clean Sweep...
...As long as the chance remains that legalization will lead to increased use, most Americans will be reluctant to take it...
...If trash needs collecting, officers can contact the sanitation department...
...Thus, Newt Gingrich talks passionately about "empowering" the poor, by which he means cutting back the government's role in the inner city...
...If we want to eliminate the drug problem, these people say, we must first eliminate the "root causes" of drugs, a hopelessly daunting task at which, however, they also happen to make their living...
...He issued a report, called "Fighting Back," which saluted twenty top antidrug community leaders...
...The nation's public-housing projects— veritable incubators of drug use—are filled with hopeless, apathetic souls whose main preoccupation is surviving from one day to the next...
...That's not surprising...
...So far, they haven't...
...COP advocates are thus correct in pointing to the importance of improved communitypolice relations...
...Unfortunately, the prospect of such investment is anathema to the likes of William Bennett...
...The danger lies in the Republican view of these grass-roots groups as mere appendages to the police...
...Taken together, these groups constitute a vibrant national network that may be able to attack the drug trade at its roots—if they receive the proper support from Washington...
...While casual drug use among the middle class is declining—a trend that began well before Bennett's term—the level of drug abuse in our inner cities remains alarmingly high...
...It has organized marches through crack-infested neighborhoods, directing angry chants through bullhorns at crack dealers...
...Those who say that law enforcement has failed should remember that until the last two years it was barely tried . . .," criminologist James Q. Wilson has asserted in the New Republic, adding: The facts are these: some parts of our cities are being destroyed by gangs competing for the right 236 • DISSENT MOS —Can Ws Cops...
...By calling on cops to act as social workers, COP shows the extent to which government has abnegated its traditional responsibilities toward the nation's poorest citizens...
...Those who believe that arresting drug dealers can significantly reduce crime, Fulwood added, are "missing the boat...
...in the process, it's been thoroughly denatured...
...It's time to rescue these groups from the conservative embrace and provide them with the assistance they need to take on the drug trade...
...Only by setting up parallel structures can communities hope to rescue their children from the streets...
...The group's director, Alvin Brooks, was featured in Bennett's top-twenty list of drug fighters, and both Bennett and George Bush have traveled to Kansas City to see the Ad Hoc Group in action...
...For inner-city children to remain free of drugs, Brooks says, "they have to have the same options as their white suburban counterparts...
...It's not large handouts they want, but modest grants for specific projects—athletic centers, job-training programs, health clinics, day-care centers, and the like...
...A high-level panel on D.C...
...q 240 • DISSENT...
...Drug gangs continue to flourish, and shootouts remain a favorite means of settling disputes...
...In an effort to change that, the District in late 1989 launched an innovative program called Reclaiming Our Streets...
...The roof to my apartment is leaking, the elevators stink of urine, and the courtyard's filled with trash...
...Despite it all, crack and cocaine remain widely available in Kansas City...
...Conceding defeat, the police department let Clean Sweep lapse...
...All in all, legalizing cocaine while keeping crack illegal seems as practical as outlawing martinis while gin and vermouth remain legal...
...Walking a beat, they become acquainted with the community and the problems it faces...
...Can we do better in dealing with drugs in America...
...After that we can help communities reorganize themselves so that the good people control the streets...
...Making more of a dent in the drug trade would require a significant expansion in the Ad Hoc Group's 238 • DISSENT Drugs—Con we Cope activities...
...The key is community...
...The price tag for Valley Green alone came to between $10 million and $15 million...
...In the end, COP seems another one of the fads that periodically sweep the nation's law-enforcement community, all meeting the same sad end...
...The key, as Brooks indicates, is providing inner-city kids an alternative to the streets...
...But the program is not cheap...
...High police visibility may drive off street muggers, auto thieves, or subway bandits . . . but has little or no effect on the drug-related violence that is the District's 'crime problem.' " The same pattern is evident in cities throughout the country...
...They may be the only two people in America who believe that...
...OFFICER: I'll see what I can do about that trash, Ma'am...
...By recognizing that law enforcement alone cannot get the job done, that local social and economic conditions must also be addressed if crime is to be reduced, COP represents an advance in our efforts to understand the drug crisis and fashion a response to it...
...None was offered...
...Even if such a corporation were created, though, it would represent only a start...
...Yet the prospects for achieving it seem dim...
...year...
...The program had an immediate effect...
...Consider, for example, the Ad Hoc Group Against Crime in Kansas City, Missouri— one of Bennett's favorite community groups...
...For the drug crisis to be contained, the residents in these frontline neighborhoods will somehow have to be mobilized...
...One can only hope that Bob Martinez, Bennett's nominated successor, reads this report and acts on it...
...Drug-related violence continues to rage, fueling record homicide rates in cities from New York to Phoenix...
...In addition, some five thousand federal officers work in Washington, effectively doubling the number of police in the city...
...But Bennett's conception of community was extremely narrow...
...Working with the police, the group has succeeded in shutting down more than one hundred crack houses...
...As a test site, the government chose Valley Green, a hardscrabble neighborhood on the city's southern flank...
...Although a vial can be had for a few dollars, the dose it contains is usually tiny, sustaining a high for no more than ten or fifteen minutes...
...Homicides, 197 in 1987, spurted to 369 in 1988...
...Once the neighborhood was secured, a battalion of service workers moved in...
...The District of Columbia has more police officers per capita—eight for every one thousand citizens—than any other city in the country...
...This, he maintains, would undercut cocaine dealers without significantly boosting crack use...
...The conservative policy of benign neglect having failed miserably, it's time for liberals to propose an alternative...
...As residents come to trust the police, they supply information about local criminals...
...Extending the program to the other target areas would cost another $70 million, city officials estimate...
...The city's prison population swelled from 5,800 in 1984 to 8,315 in 1988...
...He regularly crisscrossed the country, meeting with block presidents and neighborhood organizers...
...My boy, meanwhile, dropped out of school earlier this SPRING • 1991 • 237 DION —Can We Cops...
...And that could prove very costly, as shown by a recent experiment in the nation's capital...
...As a start, the foundation recommends federal funding of $500 million a year, with matching funds from state and local governments...
...Of that sum, a mere $102 million—about one percent—was earmarked for community-group efforts...
...I'm trying to get him into a treatment program, but the nearest center is two miles away and it won't have an opening for three months...
...But many poor neighborhoods, beaten into submission, remain immune to such activity...
...so did the level of violence...
...to destroy lives by selling drugs...
...A most desirable goal, but when it comes to showing how we might actually attain it, the legalizers invariably come up short...
...Consider, for instance, the scheme advanced by Richard J. Dennis in the November 1990 Atlantic Monthly...
...No price reduction as a result of the legalization of cocaine, then, should lead to a significant increase in the number of crack users...
...Titled "Youth Investment and Community Reconstruction," the study summarizes the foundation's experience in working with crime-prevention groups in ten inner-city neighborhoods...
...Drugs have generated the most sustained burst of community activism in America since the 1960s...
...Yes, the police can help repair potholes and haul away trash, but what about the deeper problems facing these neighborhoods...
...Initially, this activism took the form of crime-patrol groups that worked with the police to push out dealers...
...From Miami to Seattle, tens of thousands of Americans have taken to the streets, seeking to win them back from the drug trade...
...To date, most critics of current policy fall into two broad categories...
...Needless to say, vigorous law enforcement remains essential...
...experienced extreme social disintegration, making any form of collective action problematic...
...In two and a half years, the D.C...
...With additional funds, Brooks adds, he could hire a few full-time staff members...
...Going on a binge can cost hundreds of dollars...
...To help treat drug abusers, a mobile medical van was sent to the area twice a week...
...Brooks has found a building ideally suited to his purpose but lacks the funds to buy it...
...He could also open a neighborhood recreation center...
...The ineffectuality of our current strategy has fueled the search for an alternative...
...In his view, grass-roots groups are to serve as little more than adjuncts to the police, helping to extend their ability to patrol and arrest...
...The next highest figure is 3.9 officers, in Baltimore...
...Over time, though, these groups have evolved into highly versatile organizations concerned with basic quality-of-life issues...
...If police action has failed to stem the drug trade, they argue, we need more of it, not less...
...The Bennett Plan singles it out as a "vivid example of how a well-coordinated community can take on the threat posted by neighborhood drug activity...
...As drug czar, Bennett worked hard to discredit the notion that drug abuse has root causes...
...With few organized activities available in downtrodden neighborhoods, black youths are easily sucked up into the drug trade...
...The more important function of these groups—addressing the conditions that give rise to crime—Bennett dismisses as irrelevant...
...Without public support, though, these groups simply cannot get the job done...
...But the issue has not gone away...
...Police officers are trained to arrest criminals, not deal with housing problems or inadequate health care...
...The National Drug Control Strategy, commonly known as the Bennett Plan, asserted that "whatever gains are made by law enforcement in diminishing local drug problems, a permanent solution requires the persistent involvement of an entire community...
...The officers will not only fight crime in the neighborhood but will also seek to restore a sense of order in their assigned areas and to enhance the quality of life for its residents...
...Youth gangs, packing more firepower than ever, have taken over large tracts of the inner cities...
...In fact, crack is not cheap...
...Investing in the community would seem an ideal place to begin...
...With 1990 on record as America's most murderous year, addressing the problems of our inner cities seems more pressing than ever...
...Unlike traditional policing, in which officers ride around in squad cars to respond to emergency calls, police in the COP system are assigned to specific neighborhoods...
...Those gangs have to be defeated, even if it means hiring more judges and building more correctional facilities...
...The National Guard towed away abandoned cars, and prison inmates carted off trash...
...One consists of those advocating legalization...
...They have to go ten to fifteen miles to be entertained...
...Nonetheless, local residents expressed support for the program, and the local government, buoyed by the results, targeted eight other neighborhoods for similar treatment...
...Imagine the conversation between a community-oriented policeman and, say, a mother in a public-housing project: OFFICER: Good afternoon, Ma'am, how are you today...
...Community activism, which in the 1960s was embraced by liberals, has recently been appropriated by the right...
...In November 1989, the city sent squads of policemen into Valley Green to clear it of drug dealers...
...Even where the police do establish good relations with the community, their capacity to render assistance is limited...
...The report recommends establishing a quasipublic Youth Investment Corporation, which, mixing public and private funds, would support youth programs and community groups throughout the country...
...Only when this happens can we hope for progress in the fight against drugs...
...Many black leaders—fearful of the devastation legalization could wreak in their communities— oppose such a course...
...Yet the violence only escalated...
...The Ad Hoc Group has plenty of volunteers, he says, but "volunteers can do only so much...
...Our kids have nowhere to go to swim, to sing, to dance," Brooks laments...
...The city sent in recreation counselors, expanded day-care facilities, and held a job fair...
...This is the real value of neighborhood groups: they provide a vehicle for involving inner-city residents in their communities...
...The number of drug dealers in the area fell off...
...Drugs have turned our streets into battle zones, and if reclaiming them requires a cop on every corner, then so be it...
...For the first time in years, housing-project residents were able to come and go without fear of being shot...
...According to one recent study, the presence of something so simple as a Boys' Club in a housing project can help reduce the level of drug activity there...
...In short, Brooks is one of the "thousand points of light"— volunteers working to improve their communities independently of the government...
...Even if it were available, $70 million would represent little more than a down payment on the overall sum needed to resuscitate the city's poor neighborhoods...
...police arrested 47,000 people...
...We're on the road to victory," he declared...
...An effective dose of crack is already so cheap that price is not much of a deterrent to those who want to try it," he states...
...With traditional police techniques failing, law-enforcement advocates are gravitating toward a new one, called community-oriented policing (COP...
...With police brutality a serious concern in New York and other large cities, all the talk about cooperation and sensitivity seems utopian...
...A wealthy Chicago industrialist and long-time Democratic fundraiser, Dennis proposes legalizing cocaine while keeping crack illegal...
...Housing inspectors evicted illegal tenants and boarded up crack houses...
...Then there's my brother, the crackhead...
...the drug trade is simply too vast and powerful...
...Since its creation in the mid-1980s, the Ad Hoc Group has set up drug hot lines, held rallies in shopping centers, and established drug-free zones around Kansas City schools...
...A laudable goal...
...Don't give me more [police] people," Police Chief Isaac Fulwood, Jr., later told the Washington Post...
...If not less law enforcement, how about more...
...By its very existence, the club can spur parents to pay more attention to their kids, thus making it less likely they'll get into trouble...
...if street lights are out, they can call public works...
...Finally, city officials met with project residents and encouraged them to get involved...
...When Bennett and Bush came visiting, Brooks asked for help...
...In many cities, youth gangs offer the one viable social structure...
...A group began patrolling the neighborhood every evening...
...If cocaine were legalized, crack would become cheaper and purer—a deadly combination that might well increase demand...
...In 1990, the Bush administration spent almost $11 billion on antidrug programs...
...The police, in turn, help the community solve its problems...
...Washington, in turn, is but one of many cities in urgent need of increased social spending...
...For many poor neighborhoods have no community groups to begin with...
...The terrified residents— mostly single mothers on welfare—felt powerless to fight back...
...Spanning the political spectrum from Milton Friedman to Ira Glasser, the legalizers maintain that decriminalizing drugs would wring the profits from the trade, thereby reducing the crime it generates...
...In one characteristically acerbic comment, delivered at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, Bennett remarked how, "on the left," we see whole cadres of social scientists, abetted by whole armies of social workers, who seem to take it as catechism that the problem facing us isn't drugs at all, it's poverty, or racism, or some other equally large and intractable social phenomenon...
...Conceptually, though, COP helps point a way toward an alternative drug strategy...
...Community-oriented policing is catching on in cities across the country...
...Unfortunately, those cities that have tried this approach have little to show for it...
...This fall, for instance, Mayor David Dinkins, announcing a new anticrime package for New York City, made COP its centerpiece...
...crack dealers, though less visible, continued to operate in the area...
...And even as crack and cocaine remain widely available, smokable heroin is pouring into the country, raising the threat of a new epidemic...
Vol. 38 • April 1991 • No. 2
