David M. Kennedy

Center for Crime Prevention and Control

John Jay College of Criminal Justice

dakennedy@jjay.cuny.edu

Closing Illegal Drug Markets

I. "Open Air" Illicit Drug Markets

Street drug markets – public street-corner dealing, drug houses, and the like – are amongst the most serious and toxic of public safety problems. Invariably located in poor, minority, disadvantaged communities, they cause and facilitate a range of severe direct and indirect harms. They ease initiation into drug use and support addiction; they draw local youth into the drug trade; they draw nonresident drive-through buyers into the neighborhood; they create attractive targets for armed robbers; they spur the creation of loose drug "crews," who then feud with each other over turf and other sources of conflict; they lead to the acquisition and use of firearms; they encourage robbery, burglary, and other crimes by addicts; they lead to the loss of control of public space; they drive down property values, drive out businesses, and lead many residents who can to leave; they create pro-drug, antischool, and antiwork norms amongst youth. Law enforcement responses to such drug markets often lead to profligate use of arrest and prosecution while still failing to address the problem; such enforcement then fuels other problems, such as the "reentry" of large numbers of drug offenders leaving prison.

Ordinary residents in such communities find themselves in a terrible position. They are locked in relationships with dealers, often young people, they both treasure and fear, and with law enforcement whose authority and actions are both need and abhor. The deep anger, bitterness, and racial tension typical of such communities are both understandable and profoundly troubling. In many communities these problems persist, essentially unchanging, for decades on end.

: Central to these problems is the fact that drug markets typically do not respond very well either to traditional enforcement pressures or to traditional prevention strategies. "Kingpin" style strategies tend to be informant-driven, slow, and unable to reach many mid- or upper-level traffickers, or to deter their replacement by new traffickers. "Street" strategies tend to rely on large numbers of arrests but still reach only easily replaced low-level players. In addition, they are expensive, using large quantities of both police and prosecutorial resources, and are troublesome at the community level as hard-hit neighborhoods resent both the drug activity and the official enforcement response. National strategies like source-county reduction efforts and interdiction are weak and essentially invisible at the local level. Prevention strategies like DARE, treatment, and the like are weak, often expensive, and particularly overwhelmed by concentrations of drug dealing and use. As a result, state and local officials and community residents typically see virtually no productive options.

II. Breakthrough strategies

Over the last two years, High Point and Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and Newburgh, New York have done new work suggesting quite strongly that something better is possible. Each community has focused on their worst overt markets (in each case a mixture of open-air and inside dealing) and shut them down almost entirely, largely without displacement, and in ways that minimize the use of law enforcement, have won the strong endorsement of the community, and that maximize the chances that dealers will be rehabilitated. The first such intervention, in High Point’s West End neighborhood, is now two years old and is fully self-sustaining (that is, no extra police attention is required); High Point has also shut down two additional markets, with the same results. As each operation has taken place, overt drug activity city-wide has diminished (that is, not only has displacement not occurred, but benefits have traveled). As a result, after the most recent intervention, there is no remaining overt drug hotspot in High Point. (High Point is a city of about 100,000; one way of considering these results is thus to think of the city as a precinct in a larger jurisdiction, with the strategy fully capable of being implemented on a precinct-by-precinct basis as needed. Winston-Salem and Newburgh have had parallel results.) In conjunction with the National Urban League, Kansas City, MO; Fort Wayne, IN; Providence, RI; and Tucson, AZ are currently exploring the initiative.

The strategies have employed the following elements:

· They have focused on entire markets at once. Traditional strategies tend to deal with a few dealers at a time or a few users at a time, while the market as a whole stays vigorous and draws offenders back in, continues to intimidate the community, and makes the authorities look weak and incompetent. The North Carolina strategy shuts down entire markets, interrupting those dynamics and making it far easier to maintain the victory;

· They have directly addressed the implicit, unspoken, and heavily racialized norms and narratives of law enforcement; communities, and offenders (drug dealing has become accepted in the community; drug enforcement is a deliberate racial attack on minorities; jail is a source of status);

· They have used careful information-gathering and analysis to focus on active dealers – who prove to be far fewer than usually believed – demonstrating to communities that law enforcement can be careful, selective, and will not engage in practices like profiling;

· They have used enforcement powers strategically and sparingly, employing arrest and prosecution only against violent offenders and when nonviolent offenders have resisted all efforts to get them to desist and to provide them with help;

· They have made the promise of law enforcement sanctions against dealers extremely direct and credible, so that dealers are in no doubt concerning the consequences of offending and have good reason to change their behavior. With the promise of legal consequences for dealing so credible, deterrence is effective and actual arrest and prosecution are rare;

· They have brought powerful informal social control to bear on dealers, from immediate family and community figures, so that dealers know that their behavior is unacceptable and that any subsequent action by law enforcement is legitimate and endorsed by the community;

· They have organized and focused services, help, and support on dealers, so that those who are willing to try have what they need to change their lives;

· Law enforcement, community figures; parents and families of dealers; city and nonprofit service providers; churches; civil rights groups; and other parties have entered into these interventions side-by-side, with the enormous benefit of eliminating the racial tension that usually results from drug market strategies;

· Each operation includes a maintenance strategy designed to prevent the market from reemerging;

· Community benefits have been profound and lasting. Both drug and violent crime have been dramatically reduced. Residents report substantial improvements in the quality of their lives. The community partnership remains vigorous. Fundamentally new understanding arise between and about law enforcement, communities, and offenders.

III. The basic operation

The strategy is surprisingly simple. A drug market area is identified on the basis of crime data and law enforcement experience. Careful investigation identifies the active dealers (invariably, this process shows that a relatively small number of dealers has been driving the market). Drug activity is carefully documented through surveillance, video, and similar means. Coordinated law enforcement activity creates “levers” – a drug buy, a probation or parole violation, an existing case, or the like – against most or all dealers. Violent offenders are arrested.

The families and other “influentials” of non-violent offenders are identified, and they and the dealers are invited to a meeting with law enforcement, city officials, community residents and organizations, and service providers. In the meeting, offenders are show clear evidence that their activities are known: photographs and video of their criminal activity; investigations that have led to evidence sufficient for prosecution; and the like. Dealers are told that they are out of the drug business; that the community has no tolerance for their behavior; that further drug activity will be met with immediate legal sanction; but that all would like them to succeed and will offer any help they need and will accept. (Some jurisdictions have formally deferred prosecution on these open cases and put the offenders on formal contracts detailing their obligations to stay drug-free, participate in programs, seek work, etc.)

These meeting have been electrifying and transformative community events, with dealers' parents cheering law enforcement, offenders bringing other offenders in for services, and residents issuing calls for the reclamation of their own communities. The drug markets in question have collapsed, with minimal police attention required to address subsequent drug activity. When enforcement attention has been required, it has met with full community support. Attendant problems – drive-through buyers, prostitutes, gunfire – have been all but eliminated. The lasting impact makes it possible to repeat the intervention elsewhere in the jurisdiction: with, in the opinion of law enforcement, steadily increasing credibility on the streets as the authorities and the community demonstrate their capacity to act effectively. In all the jurisdictions, the operations have been fielded without additional or outside resources.