A Contemporary Perspective13

CHAPTER 10
Community Policing and Drugs
Stabilizing a neighborhood requires a strat-

egy that creates community cohesion; a
strategy which can be extended, with limited
resources, citywide.
—Chief Anthony Bouza
Minneapolis
The Police Response: The Military Model & the War on Drugs
The police have adapted the military model as the most logical structure to
confront the domestic threats of crime and civil disorder. While that makes obvious
sense, it also means the police can risk falling victim to the same kinds of pitfalls the
military faces. One obvious problem is the potential for duplication of effort and lack
of coordination among the branches of the armed forces. Left unaddressed, such
problems can cause confusion and leave gaping holes that any enemy could penetrate
and exploit, and the system would invite waste and fraud.
To minimize the dangers, the Joint Chiefs of Staff meet regularly to discuss and
develop an overall strategy — and also in the hope that focusing on common goals will
keep territorialism and jealousy to a minimum. The Joint Chiefs also individually and
collectively use intelligence to formulate scenarios about the the broadest possible
range of problems that might arise. This allows them to analyze and test various
options, make adjustments, and update their strategies as conditions change.
While that system is obviously far from perfect, the federal, state, and local
criminal justice response suffer from all the drawbacks of the military model, with
few of its saving graces. The three main actors in the criminal justice system are not
co-equals in the same way as the Army, Navy, and Air Force. Federal, state, and local
police agencies are not a hierarchy as much as a loose aggregation of entities, sepa-
rately funded, with few urgent reasons or opportunities to interact. This makes it
difficult for them to coordinate efforts as if they were part of the same unified team.
Appeals to the common good can carry weight, but money and power often
matter more. In the War on Drugs, for example, the federal funds available to state
and local departments are contingent on demonstrating cooperation and coordina-
tion. The regulations also require that the states write a drug strategy each year,
277
278 SPECIAL PEOPLE/SPECIAL PROBLEMS: THE SPECIAL CHALLENGE OF DRUGS
which must mesh with the federal drug strategy. But the relatively small amounts of
money involved have caused numerous problems, not the least of which is whether
it is worth the investment in time and money for many local agencies to apply for the
grants and do the paperwork required to verify performance. Another problem the
states face is that they cannot possibly stretch the federal funds to cover all the
worthwhile efforts that seek assistance, which means losing an opportunity to
involve those agencies in the process. Lack of coordination has also been complicated
by the situation where some major cities have been able to circumvent state govern-
ment, by applying directly for federal funds.
The challenge for the police is to decide how any additional dollars they receive
should be spent. The goal is to reduce supply (importation, manufacture, produc-
tion, distribution, and sale of drugs) and demand (purchase, possession, and use).
For the most part, the traditional police response has been to focus on arresting
dealers, in the belief that arresting enough dealers will ultimately remove enough
drugs to dry up demand. The problem when the police focus on making more and
more arrests, however, is that this risks creating bottlenecks elsewhere in the crimi-
nal justice system. Ultimately, generating more arrests without considering and cop-
ing with the potential backlog can cause as many problems as it solves, since
overloading the crime labs, prosecutors, courts, or corrections risks undermining the
effectiveness and credibility of the entire system.
While federal funding allocated for the War on Drugs urged states to integrate
the new money in ways that would not cause bottlenecks, the available funds could
only be stretched so far. The unevenness of federal funding year-to-year also compli-
cates intelligent long-term planning, and some states have grave concerns about start-
ing new efforts only to find future funding may disappear, leaving states no options
other than abandoning the initiatives or finding ways to fund them themselves.
This underscores the different kinds of problems that can plague well-meaning
efforts to encourage agencies at various levels to work together. The DEA, for exam-
ple, has been able to use the lure of sharing forfeiture money as a way to involve
other agencies in joint operations. As more states develop tougher criminal and civil
forfeiture laws of their own, however, state and local agencies can choose to go it
alone. Though the increasing use of forfeiture provides a way to wring profits out of
drug trafficking, the competition among various agencies for forfeiture risks under-
mining cooperation, and it can spawn new opportunities for abuse.
The reality is that various agencies face different drug problems, have different
strategies, and they also have good reason to guard their autonomy. Competition,
mistrust, and jealousy among police agencies erodes cooperation, and there is often
no formal system to coerce - or even encourage - communication. In many areas,
the municipal police stereotype the county sheriff's department as their inferior, and
COMMUNITY POLICING AND DRUGS 279
both dismiss the state police as arrogant and aloof. In one state, an organized crime
task force refuses to alert anyone in a certain big-city police department about an
upcoming raid, because past experience raised concerns about corruption and
tipoffs. Instead of providing a seamless web that drug dealers cannot penetrate, the
result is all too often a patchwork quilt dotted with gaping holes.
Outsiders often see the police as one big team. They see the DEA and FBI at the
top, working with other federal agencies to keep drugs from flowing in and on efforts
aimed at distributors and major dealers inside the country. They assume all state and
local agencies are linked to the top of this pyramid, with information flowing
smoothly up and down, top to bottom.
People also assume that those at the federal and state level concentrate on Mr.
Big, freeing local agencies to concentrate on drug problems at the community level.
While it is true that the increasing use of multi-agency task forces offeri the promise
of improved cooperation, the desire to bag Mr. Big can often prove too seductive for
even the smallest agencies to abandon.
-
Catching Mr. Big means great press coverage - an opportunity for the chief, the
mayor, and perhaps even the officers involved to appear on TV in front of stacks of
money and drugs. It often means glory, promotions, and verification that the police
can match wits with the shrewdest drug kingpins and beat them at their own game.
Increasingly as well, arresting Mr. Big means forfeiture money - money that need not
be shared if the agency achieved the coup on its own.
In contrast, the seemingly endless hassling of street-level dealing in crumbling
neighborhoods is never glamorous - and no forfeiture money. An occasional sweep
to keep low-level dealers and addicts off the streets, especially when visiting conven-
tioneers or foreign dignitaries are due, may be a necessary evil. But many police
officials see this tactic as pointless, and they worry that allowing officers to get too
close invites corruption and abuse. Most officers have little reason to lobby for such
efforts, since most have reason not to be enthusiastic about spending much time
dealing with such a sad and frustrating group.
Yet lacking most of all perhaps is a coordinated think-tank approach that allows
the police to assess and re-assess their drug strategies, to see whether they are - or
even whether they can - achieve the desired goals. The danger in trying to solve any
problem is that preconceptions can cloud our ability to see clearly. Particularly in the
case of drugs, many police departments have simply become reactors, so over-
whelmed that they have little time to think through whether simply doing more of
the same is the best answer. Within agencies and departments, let alone across juris-
dictional lines, few policymakers can afford to stand back from the fray, evaluate the
available research, gather information on local priorities, debate the merits and rami-
fications of various options, and then implement the overall strategy, with a system
in place to evaluate the results and make appropriate changes.

The problem is often that many departments think that they are being rigor-
ously logical in their approach, but they tend to measure results in arrests made
rather than on whether the drug problem is getting better or worse. All too often, the
department has no system that allows them to anticipate and plan for new drug
problems in the future, because they are too busy fighting the good fight today. The
result is that people in the community see the system breaking down, yet the police
seem to offer few, if any, fresh ideas.
Whether they live there or not, people nationwide are outraged that there are
virtual drug bazaars in many major cities, where dealers brazenly hawk their wares.
Drug-ridden areas of major cities have become the laboratories for uncontrolled
experiments that produce new drugs and new drug problems. Crack did not find a
toehold in the suburbs or rural areas and flow into the cities - it emerged in the inner
city where problems with hard drugs have festered for years. Harvard University's
George Kelling says that organized sweeps and focused crackdowns prove that the
police "can take the beach," but what is less clear is if they have an affordable and
effective strategy to "hold the beach."'
The police who work the crack-infested inner-city hot spots "are finding them-
selves outgunned and outmanned by crack traders brazenly willing to unload mili-
tary-assault weapons on anyone in their way."2 The fear is that drugs and drug
violence will spread. Embattled police in many cities have instituted de facto decrimi-
nalization of marijuana use, since they cannot keep up with efforts targeted at hard
drugs. Police in suburban or rural areas may have the luxury of worrying about
someone selling lookalikes at schools, but metro police in many cities must first
contend with the 12-year-olds experimenting with crack, as the age of first use of
cocaine continues to drop.'
Not only do people have reason to fear that the intense problems of the inner
city will spread, but Americans are inherently offended at the notion that we can
tolerate the law being applied unequally place to place. By tolerating a level of law-
lessness in drug-infested neighborhoods to persist, we perpetuate an environment
likely to cause even more problems over time. Parents who try to raise children in the
urban equivalent of a war zone need support in their struggle to instill proper values
in their youngsters. They face enough obstacles without the additional burden of
trying to undo the obvious message on the streets, which is that the criminal justice
system is on the verge of impotence in the face of drugs.
The police cannot do the job alone, and there is some optimism that drug edu-
cation may be helping to reduce demand, as evidenced by the decline in drug use by
high-school seniors for the second year in a row.' The concern, however, is that drug
education works best where education works best. The dropout rate in many inner-
city schools exceeds 40 %, and achievement scores often fall below statewide norms.
Of concern as well is whether these modest gains in reduced demand will continue to
hold up over time, and whether these improvements will soon translate into visible
relief on the streets, where dealers have stepped up their hard-sell marketing aimed
at the young.
As the turn of the century approaches, the police have no way to know whether
the chilling drug problems in major cities will recede, stabilize, or continue to spill
into the areas where the system had previously worked fairly well. Drug education
and treatment can make valid long-term contributions, but the police are increas-
ingly being asked to put their lives on the line today, with little relief in sight. Of
increasing concern as well is whether aggressive police anti-drug efforts might inad-
vertantly trigger a new wave of urban riots. The so-called "Super Bowl riot" in Miami
occurred when a Hispanic officer shot and killed a black motorcycle rider, and the
companion riding in back died as well. In the months following the riot, some Hispanic
officers reported being hit with rocks in black neighborhoods, highlighting the tensions
that persist. A Newsweek article in 1989 focused on the pressures that drug enforce-
ment places on the police, the "stress of fighting a war they can't seem to win."6
No one claims to have all the answers, but the problem is obviously so complex
that it demands a problem-solving approach that focuses on understanding the
underlying dynamics. Otherwise the law of unintended consequences can mean that
well-meaning efforts inadvertently produce new problems that risk making the situa-
tion even worse.
Research on Police Strategies Aimed at Drugs

Harvard policy analyst Mark H. Moore and his colleague Mark A.R. Kleiman of
the John F. Kennedy School of Government have separately and together examined
the goals the police hope to accomplish with their anti-drug efforts as well as the
strategies they can and do use to achieve those ends.* Both have arrived at compat-
ible but not identical conclusions, and both agree that departments can fail to see that
the strategies they have developed are not achieving the results they expect.
At the top of Moore's list of what police departments target as their primary
goals is eliminating or reducing the violence associated with drug trafficking, in par-
ticular the violence in the crack trade, which can involve youth gangs. The second
*To avoid the clutter of footnotes, only direct quotes are referenced by number, but a list of pertinent publications
by both men can be found in the Notes for this chapter.
goal is to reduce user crime. Moore also wrote that "drug trafficking threatens the
civility of city life and undermines parenting, "7 so he ranked police efforts targeted at
improving those conditions third. In addition, any strategy the police employ must
take into account potential bottlenecks elsewhere in the criminal justice system. And
finally, administrators must also acknowledge the importance of controlling police
corruption and abuse of power. Kleiman's list of primary police goals includes: drug
abuse control, crime control, neighborhood protection, and organized crime control.
Though Moore and Kleiman arrange the strategies and tactics that the police can
use to achieve those goals into different strategic bundles, together they break down
into three general kinds of approaches: those that look upward toward top dealers,
those that focus downward at street level, and those that target juveniles, including
both drug trafficking by youth gangs and juvenile drug abuse.
High-Level Enforcement
Both Moore and Kleiman concur that police departments that adopt the DEA/
FBI strategy of Targeting Mr Big (high-level enforcement) as their sole or primary
approach are often unwittingly buying into its limitations and drawbacks. Ideally, of
course, arresting Mr. Big should help take drugs off the street, and penalizing him
should deter others from dealing.
The economics of supply and demand dictate that anything that substantially
reduces supply should result in a price increase. The price of coffee in the United
States jumped dramatically a few years ago when drought in Colombia reduced the
supply. If either nature or man had interfered sufficiently with the amount of Colom-
bian cocaine reaching city streets, we would expect to see a similar rise in price. As
Kleiman writes, "The theory predicts a price rise, other things being equal, if
enforcement activity per unit of drug sales rises. But it [price] hasn't been rising. The
theory that high-level enforcement raises prices is thus untested (and probably
weakly true).'"8 Even though a price increase might have benefits, such as discourag-
ing first-time or casual users, it could also mean those who persist in using the drug
simply have to commit more crimes to pay the higher price.
Kleiman also noted the possibility of another unfortunate consequence of high-
level enforcement, which is that the Mr. Bigs the police catch may well be the sloppi-
est or weakest, so that law enforcement is inadvertently " toughen [ing] the
breed... Of concern as well is that, since one of the primary goals of any police
strategy is to reduce the violence associated with drug trafficking, arresting Mr. Big
risks triggering a new round of violence, as pretenders battle for the vacated throne.
While cynics argue that anything that encourages dealers to kill each other is desir-
able, crack dealers in particular are notorious for wiping out whole families and
innocent bystanders as well. This escalating climate of violence risks undermining
people's faith in the system overall.
There is also reason to believe that Mr. Big is clever enough to understand the
virtue of finding ways to eliminate the competition without violence, if possible,
since that fuels public outrage and draws increased attention of the police. No doubt
some of the information about dealers that a department receives comes from a
competing Mr. Big who hopes the police will do his dirty work for him for free.
Moore suggests why one of the best outcomes of any drug strategy is what he
calls "increased search time," which encompasses the non-monetary costs addicts
face in securing a supply of their drug of choice. Any police action that forces addicts
to look longer means less of the drug is sold and used, therefore overall profits to
dealers go down. If addicts spend less money overall on drugs, theoretically they
need not commit as many crimes to pay for their habits. Increasing search time also
offers the promise that frustrated buyers will be more inclined to -seek treatment.
Making it harder for the casual or first-time user also has the obvious virtue of
providing hope of reducing the number of new addicts in the future.
While a Mr. Big strategy seems to offer the hope of eliminating or interrupting
the supply flowing to retail level enough to increase search time, Kleiman failed to
find a single documented instance where one or more high-level busts resulted in a
significant reduction in drug consumption.
Retail-Level Enforcement
If police strategies that aim upward in the chain have failed, what about those
that look downward, toward street level? Retail-level enforcement strategies attempt
to reduce "discreet" and "indiscreet" drug dealing, with the latter more susceptible
to control. Indiscreet drug dealing includes open street dealing, as well as the dope
houses and shooting galleries used exclusively to sell drugs to large numbers of cus-
tomers. Transactions that take place in people's homes, offices, nightclubs, and other
locations where drug dealing is not the facility's sole reason for being are therefore
considered relatively discreet.
Tactics such as "street-sweeping" and "focused crackdowns" target indiscreet
dealing in the hope that this will at least drive it underground. If nothing else, that
should increase search time, which should reduce the total amount of drugs sold and
the number of crimes committed to buy the drugs. It may also reduce the overall pool
of users, by frustrating some enough to seek treatment and making it less likely that
casual and first-time users can become hard-core abusers. These benefits can also
improve the quality of life in the community, and there is also obvious virtue in
reducing or eliminating open dealing, since it sends the message that lawlessness
prevails, a particular concern with young people.
As Kleiman explains, though the targets are retail, the tactics are wholesale. The
primary focus remains dealers, but low-level dealers (though users present at the
time are often picked up as well). The danger here, of course, is that mass arrests
often cause bottlenecks further up the line. Street-sweeping has been used exten-
sively in Washington, D.C., yet a RAND study showed that from 1981 to 1986, despite
the fact drug felony arrests went up tenfold and aggregate sentences twentyfold as a
result, there was no notable decrease in drug abuse.'"
Focused crackdowns involve using officers to maintain pressure on open deal-
ing by repeatedly sweeping problem areas and making a bigger investment in gather-
ing intelligence and enlisting community cooperation, if only by providing hotline
telephone numbers where callers can circumvent the switchboard and talk directly
to the crackdown's command center. Research on three different .focused crack-
downs that targeted heroin resulted in two success stories and one partial flop.
The Kleiman, Holland, and Hayes study of the effort in Lynn, Massachusetts,
showed a reduction in crimes that are often drug related. During the first year of
operation of the Lynn Drug Task Force, the number of robberies reported declined
18.5 %, burglaries 37.5 %, and crimes against persons 66 % . Kleiman's research on
New York City's Operation Pressure Point I, which saturated the notorious Alphabet
City area of Manhattan, showed robberies down 47 %, burglaries down 37 %, and
homicides down 62 % at the end of the first year. This operation not only disrupted
drug markets and improved the quality of life, but fears about displacement proved
groundless; the study also showed that crime rates nearby either stayed the same or
declined.
The apparent failure was in Lawrence, Massachusetts, where a focused crack-
down on heroin did not produce reductions in target crimes - in fact, the rates rose
somewhat, though not significantly so. Apparently, the major problem was that a
flourishing heroin market in nearby Lowell offered addicts an easy alternative
source of supply, and addicts continued to commit crimes near home to pay for the
drug. At the time as well, Lawrence also faced an escalating cocaine problem, so
the new crimes committed to pay for cocaine may have overwhelmed any reduc-
tion in crimes committed to buy heroin. In addition, the department was forced to
divert resources from the heroin crackdown to efforts aimed at cocaine. Kleiman
noted, however, that people in the heroin-infested neighborhoods appreciated the
reduction in open trafficking.
Reactions to the Lawrence experiment deserve a closer look because of the
important issues raised. Scholar Arnold Barnett of the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology was more pessimistic than Kleiman, both about the Lynn success and the
Lawrence failure. His primary concerns centered on whether there was true long-
term change in Lynn, and whether the example of Lowell should raise questions about
whether the supposed Lynn success may have only displaced the problem elsewhere.
Police Chief Anthony Bouza had many reservations - indeed his conclusion is
that retail-level enforcement is appealing but that the "only real problem is that it
doesn't work." Among his many concerns were displacement, potential abuse of
police authority, clogging of the criminal justice system, and inefficient use of scarce
resources. The latter was of particular concern to Bouza, who noted that, once
started, such efforts often prove hard to abandon because they are so popular with
voters (as the discussion later of Pressure Point I in New York City illustrates). His
assessment is that aiming at high-level dealers is the answer to interdicting drugs, to
control the supply side, while education about the dangers of drug abuse helps
reduce demand. As the quote introducing this chapter shows, he also notes that
stabilizing a neighborhood requires a "strategy that creates commuptty cohesion; a
strategy which can be extended, with limited resources, citywide."'
On the other hand, prosecutor Kevin M. Burke of Essex County, who estab-
lished and directed both the Lynn and Lawrence efforts, was more sanguine about the
results, in particular the alleged failure in Lawrence. He contended that even though
addicts could purchase drugs elsewhere, so they still had reason to commit crimes near
home, the Lawrence success lay in the improved quality of life in targeted neighbor-
hoods and the removal of heroin dealers as visible role models in the community.
Moore has proposed that city-wide, or at least neighborhood-based, street-level
enforcement would address many of these concerns, which will be explored further
as part of Community Policing's contribution.
Efforts Aimed at Juveniles

Both Moore and Kleiman note that the police also place a high priority on efforts
they hope will address juveniles, both as part of strategies aimed at drug gangs like
the Cris and Bloods and those that target young people in the hope preventing a
new generation of adult addicts. Not only does the latter goal spring from a humani-
tarian impulse, but young addicts constitute a potential pool of lifelong criminals,
with many years left to commit crimes that will plague both society and its police in
the future. Toward that goal, various federal and state laws provide higher penalties
for sales to minors and sales made close to schools.
In some areas, officers work directly in the schools, though Kleiman noted the
potential for clashes over control. "[A] principal enthusiastic about having a chronic
troublemaker arrested for selling crack may still want to avoid having his valedicto-
rian busted for possession of a joint," he wrote."
Involving police officers in drug education is also becoming more common, and
many departments have adopted the model provided by the DARE. project in Los
Angeles, spearheaded by Chief Daryl Gates. The rationale behind DARE. is that
police officers have more credibility and expertise on drug issues than most teachers,
so that they can make a lasting impact on children's future behavior. More compre-
hensive than simply urging kids to just say no, the program is based on the assump-
tion that most kids experiment with drugs because of an inability to withstand peer
pressure, problems with low self-esteem, and lack of training in values clarification.
Research on results after the first year of the program in Los Angeles showed
that youngsters in the program demonstrated a statistically significant (though not
dramatic) reduction in illicit drug use, but it is too early to tell whether-those gains
will persist as the children mature. One concern is that D.A.R.E. overlooks adoles-
cent rebellion against adult authority as a root cause of experimentation, which
might mean police officers are not the best choice for such efforts, of concern espe-
cially because police pay scales often make them an expensive choice as well.
The Real Police World

Equally as important as theorizing about what the police can and should do
about drugs is examining what they are doing. To that end, Kleiman looked at
the drug strategies of three big-city police departments - New York, Los Angeles,
and Detroit:
• New York - The Narcotics Division, with more than 2,000 sworn officers, is roughly
two-thirds the size of the DEA, with which it cooperates, sharing the DEA's commit-
ment to the Mr. Big strategy. Kleiman also discovered that the Narcotics Division
remains particularly sensitive about scandals of the past, which means the administra-
tion has grave reservations about involving uniformed officers in street-level enforce-
ment. Even so, as mentioned earlier, Operation Pressure Point I in Alphabet City, the
largest and longest-running focused drug crackdown in the country, uses sworn offi-
cers in a program operated jointly by the Narcotics Division and Manhattan South.
The difficulty of extricating officers from such operations once started has
caused concern within the department. Kleiman said that the Narcotics Division's
Tactical Narcotics Team (TNT) street-level unit was used and then pulled from an
effort in southeast Queens - and drug trafficking sprang back full force once the
officers were removed. The problem, however, is that efforts such as Operation Pres-
sure Point I can work only if the officers stay, but this raises the concern that they are
left there with little to do.
Though pressure from Mayor Edward Koch's office meant that 700 new narcot-
ics officers were added in 1988, both Police Commissioner Benjamin Ward and nar-
cotics commanders remain skeptical that expanding TNT will dramatically reduce
drug dealing citywide. Many in the department compare the situation to the losing
effort in Vietnam, according to Kleiman.
• Los Angeles - While New York was forced to build upward, Los Angeles sprawled
outward, and Kleiman found that the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los
Angeles County Sheriff's Department that share primary responsibility for drug
enforcement in the county have far fewer officers to do the job than in New York,
both on a per-capita and per-square-mile basis. Unlike New York, Los Angeles makes
little effort to compete with the federal efforts aimed at Mr. Big, assigning only 100
officers to anything that could be considered high-level enforcement:- 'Kleiman found
that most of L.A. effort is targeted at the middlemen between importers and gang-
affiliated retailers.
Echoing the chief, L.A. officers insist that "the current generation of drug users
is lost," so their short-term efforts focus on gangs and street-level enforcement and
their long-term efforts on drug education. The CRASH unit, initially named for a local
project, has been expanded into a citywide effort to control youth gangs, which have
roughly 70,000 members, according to the chief. The good cop/bad cop approach
embraced by CRASH was portrayed in the movie Colors by the two main characters,
and though far from a documentary, the film captured this elite unit's sense of dedi-
cation to the cause.
The retail-enforcement strategy consists of having undercover officers make
buys from both gang members and independent operations. The education effort
commits 90 officers to D.A.R.E. full time. These officers receive special training and
then spend all their time in schools teaching the classes, and they make no arrests.
Kleiman says the department considers this three-pronged effort a unified strat-
egy, but he wondered if it might instead be three independent programs in search of
a common theme.
• Detroit - Though the District of Columbia edged out Detroit as having the highest
murder rate in 1988, many people think of Motown as Murder City. Detroit still
suffered a rate of 58 murders per 100,000 population in 1988,' many of which are no
doubt drug-related. Scholars like Kleiman and a number of journalists are often
amazed that the department does not reveal figures that other departments would
consider part of the public record, but Kleiman was able to find out that "more than
200" of the department's 4,800 officers are assigned to narcotics, with most targeted
at street-level enforcement, through the Narcotics Enforcement Units (NEUs) at pre-
cinct level.
In December 1987, the division launched Operation Maximum Effort, which
the mayor calls the War on Crack. It has reportedly resulted in one or two raids a day
at crack houses, usually initiated by tips received on the 24-hour DOPE hotline. After
its first six months of operation, the figures showed a 300 % increase in arrests and a
75 % reduction in calls to the hotline.
While these figures sound encouraging, Kleiman's associate Kerry Smith discov-
ered that morale in the department was low, in part because officers resented what
they considered pointless activity and pressure to generate numbers. They also
expressed unhappiness with leaving efforts aimed at suppliers and top-level dealers
to federal authorities. Concerns outside the department relate to rumors of corrup-
tion, including high-level corruption, and allegations of excessive force and harass-
ment. Detroit police officers have been arrested and charged with stealing drugs, and
both Detroit newspapers have also carried stories about people who said they were
unfairly harassed.
As these examples demonstrate, different departments have adopted different

strategies, in part because of the particular problems in the area and also because of
divergent beliefs held by different department policymakers. Yet difficulties arise in
determining what is and is not working, because there is not yet sufficient exper-
ience or research to offer much guidance. It is impossible to tell, for instance,
whether the decline in the murder rate in Detroit can in part be attributed to police
efforts aimed at drugs - or whether instead that means the drug gangs operating in
the city are so entrenched that fewer and fewer newcomers dare challenge their
power. Michigan State Supreme Court Justice Dennis Archer, speaking at Governor
James J. Blanchard's Conference on the Violent Young Offender in December 1988,
said that West Coast drug gangs eager to franchise into new markets avoid Detroit,
because the cost in blood would be too high. What is clear is that the public appreci-
ates the efforts of the police, but they are worried that they appear unable to bring
drugs under control, especially open dealing on the streets.
The Community Policing Contribution

The purpose in devoting so much space to the discussion of the overall scope
and complexity of the drug problems facing the United States is to show that the
police cannot be expected to do the job alone. A three-pronged approach, involving
law enforcement, drug education, and drug treatment, appears to hold the best
promise of making a short- and long-term difference, but it also implies a tug-of-war
among the three for scarce resources. While it is vital to educate young people about
the threats drugs pose and help them learn how to resist temptation, and it seems
tantamount to scandal that many who seek drug treatment must wait months before
it is available, people are beginning to question whether the police have an equally
clear vision of success.
In the District of Columbia, where lawmakers who control the federal purse-
strings go to work every day, there are now three times as many open drug markets
as there are supermarkets:5 People are increasingly concerned that the police seem
unable to do more. If average citizens see open dealing on the street, on their way to
and from work, why can't the police shut them down? The visible scourge of open
drug dealing intensifies the fear that nothing works.
Those who can afford to do so have the option to seek private help. In New York
City, at least one neighborhood association has hired a private firnoo patrol their
streets as a way to reduce open dealing:' As we will discuss in detail in the last
chapter, the public police have reason to worry about competition from the private
sector. There is also a growing clamor to send the military into areas where the police
appear unequal to the task of bringing open dealing under control.
If public policing as we now know it is to survive to the end of the 21st Century,
some say its future may hinge on its ability to control drugs, the primary law-and-
order issue of our times. While that may overstate the case, it is safe to say that a
failure to make a valid and visible contribution risks a two-track system, where those
who want and can afford more protection buy it from private sources, leaving the
public police the frustrating task of policing everyone else, particularly the poor
neighborhoods in our inner cities where the greatest problems tend to congregate.
As the number of people behind bars begins to approach one million, does the
best criminal justice contribution lie in making more and more arrests? Many have
criticized the criminal justice approach for being far costlier than drug education and
drug treatment. Arrest is usually just the beginning of the increasingly expensive
process of putting drug offenders away. The number of new drug cases threatens to
overwhelm the existing system, which leads to the perception that the criminal jus-
tice system acts like a revolving door that spits dealers back onto the street, where
they work even harder to sell more drugs to pay for their legal fees. An estimated
97 % of the drug arrests in New York City in 1989 will be plea bargained because of
the crush, particularly worrisome because it is often the most successful and power-
ful dealers who have the money for bail and for top lawyers skilled in keeping their
clients out of prison.'
People outside police circles do not always appreciate the magnitude of the
expense for personnel and facilities beyond arrest. Few appreciate the costs involved
in confirming the kind of drugs seized, so that the courts will consider the evidence
as valid. Add to that the tax dollars for prosecutors and public defenders to prepare
the case and confer about plea bargaining options. Those costs rise dramatically if the
case goes to trial, and victory for the prosecution often means more money will be
spent incarcerating or otherwise monitoring the convicted drug offender. Voters
often demonstrate a greater willingness to support giving drug offenders longer terms
behind bars than to tax themselves to pay for new jail and prison space. Many juris-
dictions that want to explore expanded drug testing of suspects out on bond before
trial and after conviction as part of probation or parole face additional expense.
Most people think of the police contribution as being limited to arrest - a view
held by many police officers as well. The dynamics underlying the distinct problems
loosely called this nation's drug problem stem from many root causes often deemed
far beyond the scope of the police - the factors that impel a suburban teenager to
sample marijuana may be vastly different from those that spark an liner-city teen-
ager to start rolling. Though ultimately part of the same cocaine chain, the young
woman sniffing coke in a Manhattan club does not pose the same threat of violence
as the drug-free gang enforcer whose job is to maim and kill competitors - and do the
same to those in the gang who disobey. The police face a different challenge in
uncovering and closing down a clandestine lab making crank than they do in control-
ling open crack dealing on city streets.
It may well prove to be a mistake for the police to treat drugs as the exclusive
province of a special division within the department. Perhaps an important lesson to
be learned from the DUF data, which showed that drugs are involved in as many as
four of every five people arrested in some cities, is that drugs are deeply woven into
the total fabric of police work, from child abuse to gangland-style executions, from
muggings to traffic accidents. Though drugs are not the cause of all the problems the
police face, the DUF data shows that they play some immediate role in the lives of the
vast majority of people arrested in our major cities.
This could mean that delegating efforts aimed at drugs to a special Narcotics Unit
makes as little sense as referring property crimes to a Greed and Poverty Squad, the
only difference being that greed and poverty are not themselves illegal. What is clear
is that new ways must be found to involve the entire department and its sworn
officers in efforts aimed at drugs and the problems they spawn.
Harvard's Mark Moore suggests that neighborhood or citywide street-level
enforcement offers a unique opportunity for departments to address the retail drug
dealing that has made urban life in many areas a nightmare. Not only does the deal-
ing itself erode the environment and provide odious role models for future genera-
tions, the variety of crimes it spawns threatens to overwhelm the police, whether it's
gun-toting gangs locked in armed struggle or addicts snatching purses and stealing
TVs. Yet many police administrators resist committing the patrol officers necessary to
fight a targeted or citywide war aimed at the streets, for fear they will be tempted into
corruption or abuse, or because people demand that they stay, even if the officers are
then left idle once the crisis subsides.
What has been so often overlooked is the unique contribution that Community
Policing can make - and how it might be used even more effectively in the future.
Because of the vast number of different kinds of problems that drugs create, a com-
munity problem-solving approach obviously makes better sense than simply
responding to individual incidents. Community Policing also allows the department
to fashion responses tailored to local problems and needs, without focusing exclu-
sively on arrest, which often engages the rest of the expensive criminal justice system
to little effect.
As the department's community outreach specialists, CPOs have a particularly
vital role to play in improving relations between the department and die community,
to prepare people to accept new anti-drug initiatives with less risk of a backlash or
riots. As these suggestions demonstrate, CPOs can play an important role in helping
to bring the current drug crisis under control, then they can continue to focus on
developing longer-term proactive initiatives that offer the prospect of making com-
munities more drug-resistant in the future.
The current applications and theoretical possibilities concerning how Commun-
ity Policing can help reduce society's drug problems has yet to be fully explored. The
following should be considered a partial list of what Community Policing is doing
now and a blueprint for how it might be used to accomplish more in the future:
• Community Policing directly addresses the problems of discreet and indis-

creet retail-level drug dealing. If the police are to maintain public confidence,
they must find new ways to address retail drug dealing, because this is the dealing
that occurs where people live, the dealing that directly threatens their children and
that leaves dazed, erratic, and potentially criminal addicts in its wake, destroying
community life. A sense of fairness would seem to dictate that both indiscreet and
discreet dealing would receive equal police attention, but open dealing is even more
pernicious because it reinforces the public perception that drugs have careened out of
control, a singularly dangerous message to send to young people. Open dealing also
makes it too easy for casual and first-time users as well as addicts to find a ready
supply, which adds to the current and future profits of this illicit industry and which
supports an expanding pool of addicts who threaten to spiral the rates of other drug-
related crime.
Community Policing can provide the department's first line of defense against
both indiscreet and discreet dealing. The shift from focusing on responding to calls
and making arrests to solving community problems reorders overall department pri-
orities to a proper emphasis on helping people feel safer from the threat drugs pose.
Through its CPOs, Community Policing provides a permanent, citywide, neighbor-
hood-based approach to drug problems. By allowing CPOs to own their beat areas,
they can build bridges to the people in the community whose support and participa-
tion are crucial in bringing retail-level dealing under control.
Enlisting CPOs directly in attacking retail-level dealing may require a shift in
thinking or a change in policy, and CPOs might benefit from additional training in
useful anti-drug techniques, but experience shows that Community Policing is
already making a remarkable contribution in controlling open dealing in ways that do
not focus exclusively on arrest.
In North Miami Beach, Florida, CPO Charles Reynolds was assigned to a low-
income, primarily black neighborhood notorious as a supermarket for drugs. Once
Reynolds had gained the trust of the people in his beat area, he brawly tackled the
problem in person, by individually warning low-level dealers that he would make it
his business to arrest them if they persisted - but that if they wanted help in finding a
job, he would provide that as well. Reynolds then proceeded to back up both his
threat and his promise. He made cases against those who failed to heed his warning, but
he also provided individualized and broad-based assistance to help people find work.
As part of that effort, each week Reynolds posted a list in his office of the jobs
available in the community, and he referred specific people to companies that he
knew were hiring people with their skills. Reynolds also worked with business and
professional leaders to host a Job Fair in the Community Policing office. That event
provided classes on everything from how to dress for an interview to how to write a
resume, and it involved people in role-playing so that they could assess their per-
formance in mock job interviews. By tailoring the police response to community
needs, Reynolds was able to bring open dealing under control without the mass
arrests that might have done little more than clog the system to dubious effect.
In Lansing, Michigan, Lt. James Rapp reported success with using foot patrol
officers to make repeated visits each day to knock on the door of known dope houses
- sometimes they just stood outside. Home visits are part of a GPO's routine tasks, but
having the officer appear in front of a dope house meant that the operators inside
routinely flushed any drugs on the premises each time, never knowing when the
officer's arrival might signal a bust. The officer's visible presence also helped drive
customers away, which reduced profits even further. Though such tactics raise con-
cern about displacement, Rapp said that the real mistake lies in leaving dealers some-
where to hide.
In major metropolitan areas plagued by open dealing, the department could use
its CPOs to prepare communities to accept aggressive tactics such as coordinated

sweeps and focused crackdowns, by enlisting their cooperation and support. In some
cases, one or more sweeps might be enough to disrupt and reduce open dealing
sufficiently so that the CPOs community-based efforts would be enough to maintain
control. In other cases, it might prove necessary to increase the overall number of
CPOs, so that enough could be freed to pay undivided attention to the areas with the
most severe drug problems. Not only would they be able to sustain gains made by
coordinating their efforts with periodic sweeps, but they would not be left idle, but
free to pursue new initiatives aimed at a broad range of community concerns, includ-
ing crime, fear of crime, social and physical disorder and neighborhood decay.
The problem with relying on sweeps and focused crackdowns that are not part
of a Community Policing approach is that these tactics reinforce the perception that
the answer to controlling open dealing is the sole responsibility of the police. Com-
munity Policing recognizes that law-abiding people must accept their responsibility
to become involved in efforts to save their own neighborhoods, an&that the police
are a resource that can help - not the total cure.
In a notoriously drug-infested area of the District of Columbia, members of the
Nation of Islam (formerly called the Black Muslims) have achieved notable success by
working with residents directly to develop initiatives to eliminate open dealing. Their
success demonstrates what a relatively small but dedicated group can do with grass-
roots community support. The goal of the police should be to use CPOs as the initia-
tors and supervisors in community-based efforts, not only because this model offers
the opportunity for success, but because the CPO's involvement provides additional
assurance against potential corruption, abuse, and vigilantism.
Once the immediate priority of controlling open dealing has been achieved,
Community Policing can then address indiscreet dealing in new ways. An example
reported in New York magazine shows how a sustained Community Policing effort
can help turn an area around. A single mother of two sons who was studying at
Hunter College moved into a housing project on the Lower East Side and found that
the complex was dominated by a major crack and marijuana dealer operating from
one apartment. Although no fan of the police, the woman felt she had no choice but
to ask for their help, so she contacted the Community Patrol Officer Program (CPOP)
team in her area. Together they developed a strategy that included making vertical
patrols of the apartment building; offering to escort customers inside (which scared
many away); and making arrests (and getting convictions) on a variety of charges,
including disorderly conduct. The sustained pressure ultimately caused the dealer to
make a slip that allowed the police to make a good arrest.
The woman was quoted as saying, "[Police Commissioner] Ben Ward should
come down here and give these men a big kiss. They did the police job with decency,
sensitivity, and integrity. No one can believe the quality of police care this building
was given - they say, "You talking about the New York City Police Department?"'
The success of this effort has encouraged the residents and their CPOP team to
orchestrate efforts targeted at other problems in the community, ranging from a
brothel, to a youth posse, to dealers in empty apartments. Community Policing
allows the department to build on and expand initial success in ways that limited
sweeps and focused crackdowns cannot.
• Community Policing can often gather more and better information about
retail-level and even high-level drug dealing with less danger and expense
than traditional undercover operations. It bears repeating that two groups of
people have information about crime - the criminals themselves and the law-abiding
citizens who know what they are doing. Traditional police efforts focus on the
former, though they have the greatest reason to guard their secrets - sometimes with
guns. Community Policing instead works on developing the trust required so that
law-abiding people will tell what they know, and experience in the field shows that
CPOs often generate intelligence about drug dealing beyond what any other approach
can achieve.
In the Flint experiment, then-lieutenant Bruce Benson said that the narcotics
officers were routinely frustrated because people would call with a tip, but they
rarely provided more than an address before hanging up. The officers would try to
follow up, but often found little to go on, yet the caller would call again to complain
the police were not doing their job.
Once the Flint foot patrol program got underway, instead what often happened
was that a person near a dope house would tell the officer in person about the
operation - not just the address, but the names or license plate numbers of the
dealers and customers, hours of operation, kinds of drugs sold, a physical descrip-
tion of the layout. Even if the people did not know the details, they were often willing
to work with the officer to find out what the police needed to know. The foot officer
would then transmit the information to the narcotics squad, so that they had enough
information to launch the process of securing a warrant to make a successful bust.
Flint was not an isolated case. When a new Community Policing effort was
launched in Morristown, New Jersey, the officers and the administration were
amazed at how much information about drug dealing people would pass on during
routine visits on other matters. One woman was able to provide police enough
detailed information to break up a broad-based drug dealing ring shortly after the
new program started, the result of an unrelated home visit.
CPOs say that the answer often lies in finding the neighborhood busybody, often
a retired person who keeps track of everything going on, including the neighbor-
hood's drug problems. The inherent drawback in the traditional approach is that a
motor patrol officer rarely has the time or opportunity to develop the level of trust
necessary for that person to divulge what they know, or the officer is there for other
reasons and does not want to waste time listening to worthless gossip.
Another reason that Community Policing often elicits information that other
police will never get stems from the fact that home visits and chats on the street are
routine, so that people are not targeted for revenge as they might be if dealers saw a
patrol car parked outside. Cost concerns have persuaded some departments that they
cannot afford to free CPOs completely from patrol cars, yet this may hamper their
effectiveness in gathering information, especially information on drugs. A CPO on foot
(or on a bike or even a horse) is more approachable. And when people see their CPO
walking the same streets they do, they know that the officer has good reason to care
about what goes on at street level. This can also inspire people to venture out them-
selves, and part of the answer in reclaiming streets from the drug dealers may lie in
those who do not approve of coming forth in sufficient numbers to drive them away.
In Tulsa, Oklahoma, a Community Policing effort put officers assigned to a pub-
lic housing complex on horseback, so that the horse could act as an icebreaker,
especially with kids. This allowed both adults and children the excuse of petting the
horse as an opportunity for them to tell the CPOs about problems, including drug
dealing, without drawing undue attention to themselves. In one dramatic episode,
the officers were able to rescue a single mother literally held captive by cocaine
dealers who had taken over her apartment.
• Community Policing attacks street-level dealing in ways that need not

always engage or overwhelm the rest of the criminal justice system. In the
past two years in the District of Columbia, police sweeps have succeeded in arresting
roughly 45,000 people without making any dents in the gang-related violence or the
amount of open dealing visible on the streets. Meanwhile, the rest of the system has
been overwhelmed - prison costs alone have soared 400% over the past eight years.'
The tally on Detroit's War on Crack reported by the Detroit Free Press shows
that 144 of the 1,041 people arrested on felony drug charges during the first three
months never appeared after they had been released on bond or freed because of jail
overcrowding. A report prepared by Detroit Recorder's Court seeking more funds to
add more judges said that 86.7 % of all people arrested on drug charges go free on
bond because of backlogged dockets and jail overcrowding.'"
Instead of sending the message that the system has the teeth to put dealers
away, the criminal justice response instead seems to ensure that the dealer arrested
today will be back in business tomorrow - hustling even harder to pay for legal fees.
Community Policing approaches the overall problem from a different perspective, by
employing arrest as only one of the tools in its arsenal. The traditional police
response to a problem often stresses the number of arrests made as a measure of
success, but particularly with the problem of open dealing, this yardstick may not
always be the best solution, if it clogs the rest of the system to little effect and pressur-
ing the officers to generate numbers promotes abuse of authority.
The account of the CPOP efforts in New York City highlights the importance of
solving the problem without focusing on felony drug busts as the primary goal. In
that case, using midsdemeanor disorderly conduct charges discouraged addicts from
making buys, as did having CPOs and tenants offer to escort them inside. In Wiscon-
sin, an enterprising Neighborhood Watch group boldly held its meetings across the
street from open dealing, thereby driving customers and eventually the dealers away.
CPOs are full-fledged law enforcement officers who make arrests, but they
understand that the real goal is to solve the problem, which might or might not
include making arrests. The hallmark of the Community Policing approach is its
ability to generate creative, new, community-based, police-supervisettapproaches. It
recognizes that generating arrests beyond what the rest of the criminal justice system
can handle risks creating bottlenecks that can undermine confidence in the entire
system. Community Policing shifts the focus from arrest as the primary means of
achieving solutions to one that recognizes that arrest is an expensive and time-con-
suming option that plays an important role in addressing community problems, but a
tool that must be used wisely for maximum effect.
Even in areas where new jails and prisons are under construction and addi-
tional funds are being made available to ease the squeeze drug enforcement puts on
all the other elements of the criminal justice system, there is concern that there will
never be enough dollars to do much more than play catch-up. Frustration has
tempted those involved to overload the system with arrests as a way of calling atten-
tion to the shortages elsewhere in the system, yet that ignores the obvious dangers in
such tactics. Community Policing's problem-solving orientation promotes developing
drug strategies that take constraints in the overall system into account.
• Community Policing can make the best use of visual harassment as a tactic
to reduce open dealing. One way for the police to address open dealing without
always engaging the rest of the criminal justice system involves the judicious and
lawful use of visual harassment. A neighborhood group, with a CPO in the lead, mak-
ing periodic sweeps of streets infested with open drug dealing can have the same effect
as those vertical sweeps floor-by-floor that the CPOP officers used in apartment houses.
Creative CPOs and neighborhood residents working together can also employ a
host of other tactics to make dealers nervous enough to dispose of their drugs and
drive customers away, such as visibly taking down license plate numbers of potential
buyers or clicking cameras (without film) at people making dope deals on the street.
The purpose is not to assemble lists, which could raise concerns about violation of
civil rights, but to make buyers and sellers think that they are under surveillance.
One CPO even posted signs in his beat area saying that drug dealing would not be
tolerated. The goal is to turn up the heat as much as possible, so that the police and
people together demonstrate that they will not let up. As Moore's analysis hypothe-
sized, anything that increases a user's search time has numerous short- and long-
term benefits.
• Community Policing develops and bolsters community participation in anti-

drug efforts. Areas overwhelmed with drug problems promote apathy and despair
because people feel there is nothing they can do that will make a difference. With
Community Policing, sometimes it takes only one committed person to spark an
effort that can achieve some success, and that, in turn, can help recruit others for
new efforts. The CPO's job is to be a motivator, so that the momentum is not allowed
to die even if the initial goal of curtailing street dealing is accomplished.
If a focused crackdown achieves success, but the officers are then removed,
only to have the drug dealers return, people can rightfully feel abandoned and
betrayed. Many people have expressed concern that traditional efforts ignore them -
their needs and concerns and their potential support and participation as well. Com-
munity Policing pays attention to average citizens, allowing them a voice in setting
priorities and fashioning solutions tailored to their concerns. The Community Polic-
ing alternative to flooding an area with a lot of police for a short time is to substitute a
smaller number of CPOs who are stationed in the community permanently, so that
they can recruit people in the community to help themselves.
Most often, the first goal in many areas is to reduce open dealing, to stabilize the
neighborhood, then focus on indiscreet dealing to maintain the pressure. As the area
begins to improve, the CPO can brainstorm with people in the community about new
ways to address the broader spectrum of drug problems. This might mean linking
addicts to proper treatment. Or it could include working with area businesses to
provide jobs for recovering addicts. Community Policing provides a way for the police
to link arms with all other law-abiding people who understand that they must
become part of the answer if drug problems are to be brought under control.
• Community Policing can harness the vigilante impulse and channel it in

positive directions. If the police fail to find a way to tap into and control the
frustration people feel when they are inundated with drug problems in their neigh-
borhoods, this positive energy can erupt into corrosive vigilantism, which only
serves to undermine respect for the law even further. The jury that acquitted the self-
admitted arsonists in Detroit who burned down a crack house signified the danger in
ignoring people's desire to do something concrete about their concerns.
One major problem with traditional police efforts is that the officers do not have
an opportunity to spend enough time in the community talking to people in depth, so
that they can identify and work with people whose energies can be harnessed to the
task. CPOs can work with people on developing effective and lawful ways for them to
address the problem together, not just today, but over time. An effective CPO can
transmute the dangerous impulse to vigilantism into efforts that maintain respect for
the law, efforts that do not endanger either the civil rights or physical safety of
innocent bystanders. Again, because CPOs are stationed permanently in their beat
areas, they provide continuous and personalized supervision of citizen participation
in efforts that might otherwise cross the line.
• Community Policing provides the best way to involve the entire department
in anti-drug efforts with the least risk of corruption and abuse.of authority.
Much of the reluctance of many police departments to involve line officers in street-
level anti-drug initiatives stems from the unwarranted fear that this will promote
corruption and abuse. As Kleiman noted, the irony is that virtually all of the most
scandalous incidents where drugs and drug money have spawned widespread cor-
ruption involved narcotics officers, not patrol personnel.
There will always be the occasional "dirty cop" who crosses the line, but the
dynamic most likely to promote widespread corruption and abuse appears to be
when an elite unit is put on the task, especially a unit cloaked in secrecy. A system
that also focuses on the number of arrests as the sole or primary measure of success
can also pressure police to cross the into abuse, entrapment, and fraud. The struc-
ture can promote an "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" mindset. The officers involved
in the drug corruption scandal in the 77th Precinct in New York, where narcotics
officers allegedly robbed dealers and resold the drugs, apparently thought of themsel-
ves as modern-day equivalents of Robin Hood even after they were exposed.
Yet police administrators still worry that putting an officer into a beat in a drug-
riddled neighborhood invites corruption or abuse of authority. No doubt this stems
from concern that when officers band together and begin to see themselves as part of
a cohesive brotherhood, they can also adopt an unofficial code of silence that
demands that they refuse to report a fellow officer's transgressions. This bonding is
why departments plagued by problems with officers using excessive force often find
the situation difficult to reverse.
Ironically, one Community Policing's supposed drawbacks may actually be one
of its greatest strengths. Because CPOs spend so much time with average citizens
rather than with their fellow officers, they are more likely to identify with the needs
of the people they serve rather than their fellow officers. CPOs are less likely to adopt
the traditional police mindset of us (the police) against them (everybody else). Being
out of the loop in the department often means CPOs are viewed as breed apart by
their traditional fellow officers. While that can cause problems of internal dissension,
it also makes CPOs less likely than their traditional counterparts to indulge in abuse
of authority out on the street.
CPOs also have an additional check on their performance beyond police super-
visors, since the people they serve are more likely to complain if they stray. Most
people have so little contact with traditional officers that they could not comment
knowledgeably about what they do on the job. The intense, personal relationship
between CPOs and their constituents involves average citizens in the police process,
so not only are they better able to assess performance, but experience shows they are
quite quick to complain to higher-ups if they do not like what they see.
• Community Policing can help reduce the overall profitability of drug dealing
in ways that do not increase user crime. As explained before, strategies that
target Mr. Big, if they worked well, should eventually cause the price of drugs to
increase, since one of the few laws that drugs cannot break is the law of supply and
demand. By focusing the bulk of its attention at disrupting and reducing retail-level
dealing, Community Policing reduces the overall profits of the drug trade in ways that
do not threaten a price increase, so addicts need not commit more crimes to pay for
the drugs. Street-level enforcement instead increases search time, which means
addicts spend less on drugs, so they may not need to commit as many crimes to earn
the money to spend on their drugs.
• Community Policing enlists the direct cooperation of credible informants.

One of the most frustrating problems that narcotics officers face is that they must
often rely on "turning" addicts or low-level dealers to build cases against higher-level
dealers. The problem, however, is that when the cases go to court, the questionable
character and dubious veracity of such informants can result in acquittal. Jurors can
find it hard to believe testimony from addicts and drug dealers, especially when they
have concerns about possible entrapment or that the person may be lying about
others to secure a deal for himself.
Bruce Benson, the former lieutenant in the Flint experiment, said one of the
biggest surprises was that foot patrol officers recruited many people with impeccable
reputations who volunteered to help the police build cases against dope dealers, even
at great personal risk. One local business owner felt so personally frustrated by the
city's growing drug problem that he agreed many times to make undercover buys and
then testify in court. Benson said that the man's credibility helped them win cases.
The Flint experiment showed that foot officers could develop a roster of credible
informants who would never have been reached by traditional efforts.
• Community Policing can best employ problem-solving tactics aimed at drug-

dealing and drug-related crime. Problem-Oriented Policing (also called Problem-
Solving Policing) has become a hot buzzword in police circles. As discussed in
Chapter 1, it basically asks officers to use their heads, to look beyond individual
incidents to the underlying patterns and dynamics. The purpose is to identify possi-
ble pressure points where a police intervention can make an impact on solving the
problem, whether or not that involves arrest. CPOs, because of their intense and
sustained community involvement, are often the best candidates to identify, launch,
and supervise problem-solving initiatives, adjusting them as needed based on their
evaluation of the results.
Low-level dealing and user crime can both lend themselves to problem-solving
techniques. Perhaps it means having the CPO persuade the city to instillhigh-inten-
sity streetlights in areas where open dealing takes place at night. In North Miami
Beach, Florida, the city officials in charge of code enforcement have actually been
moved into the department, in part because of the hope that CPOs can work with
them to use the regulations as a means to close dope houses. In some communities, it
could mean enlisting area businesses and parents in efforts to turn a vacant lot used
for dealing into a baseball diamond where kids could play softball instead.
These tactics can also prove useful in addressing addict crime. As the research
discussed earlier indicated, drug users often commit crimes near home. This could
mean CPOs working with residents in drug-infested housing complexes on strategies
to reduce robberies, by improving outdoor lighting and clipping back bushes where
muggers can hide. It could mean working with the manager on a system to issue
identification cards and visitor passes, to discourage outsiders from coming in to
make buys - and robbing residents to pay for the drugs. Problem-solving techniques
may also discover that a rash of burglaries can be traced to the opening of a new dope
house in the area, so that closing it down brings the number of those crimes down.
The beauty of a community problem-solving approach is that no one can ever antici-
pate all the forms it will take, because imaginative new strategies are being tested
each day.
• Community Policing can target youth gangs for special attention. As dis-
cussed in Chapter 8 on special populations, the police have the opportunity to play
an expanded role in addressing the problem of youth gangs, not only in targeting
existing gangs for special attention, but by providing lawful alternatives. The problem
with many youth gangs today is that they have discovered the potential profits availa-
ble in drug dealing and laws aimed at protecting juveniles can also inadvertently
serve as a shield to protect young operatives from harsh penalties. Community Polic-
ing can play a unique and important role in working with youth gangs, to reduce
open warfare, to gather intelligence, and to help prevent hangers-on or potential
recruits from becoming hard-core gangbangers.
The example of the Blackstone Rangers in Chicago demonstrates why the police
must be involved in continuing efforts. In the 1960s, members of this gang were
hailed by many people in the community as their protectors. Then their agenda
changed, so that by the time the gang became known as the El Rukyns of the 1980s,
its members were charged with drug dealing and for conspiring to accept payoffs
from Libya to conduct terrorist activity in the United States.
As Kleiman noted as well, kids join gangs for identity, for the recreational activi-
ties they provide, and for protection - including protection from the gangs themsel-
ves. Community Policing targets juveniles for special attention, an important part of
its overall mandate, and many CPOs have been instrumental in working with individ-
uals and business people to organize alternative activities for young people. Involving
CPOs in youth clubs and sports and recreational activities for young people also adds
that vital element of protection, and CPOs can also enlist adults willing to provide
additional security for youngsters who need a lawful alternative. With additional
guidance, Community Policing offers an opportunity to do more in this regard.
• Community Policing can target juveniles, particularly high-risk youngsters,

with efforts to reduce the likelihood they will become drug abusers or drug
dealers. Because Community Policing does not focus on arrest as its primary ration-
ale for existence, CPOs are free to look at old problems in new ways. For a traditional
officer to intervene with a juvenile flirting with drug dealing, the officer is trained to
look for a hook that would allow for an arrest. In contrast, Community Policing can
employ a wide variety of approaches aimed at the problem without narrowing to
those that focus on arrest as the primary goal.
In Flint, for example, foot patrol officer Jowanne Barnes-Coney took the proac-
tive approach of trying to identify high-risk youngsters, so that she could bring pres-
sure to bear on them in many ways, to discourage them from experimenting with or
selling drugs. Her rapport with the youngsters in her beat area allowed her to gather
a list of young people at risk - those kids whose friends said they worried about them
because they were either dabbling in drug use or they had talked about wanting to
become a dealer someday. Barnes-Coney first visited the parents of these youngsters
potentially at risk, explaining her concerns and offering to work with them on ways
to intervene, including involving teachers in the effort.
In the role of community liaison, Barnes-Coney was also able to help link fami-
lies to appropriate and affordable counseling help, as needed. Her program that
rewarded young people for arriving home by the curfew set by their parents was
another way of supporting overall anti-drug efforts, by reducing their exposure to temp-
tation. She also worked with people in the community to host broad-based efforts,
such as the drug-free rally, where each child who participated received a t-shirt.
The police have an important role to play in drug education, and the Commun-
ity Policing approach can go beyond programs like D.A.R.E. , by reaching out beyond
schools, to the truants and dropouts who may well be at greatest risk. CPOs make
presentations in classrooms, and many work within schools. But they also initiate
community-based initiatives and activities designed to include youngsters in positive
activities as an alternative to drug use. Because they have the opportunity to work
with youngsters over time, CPOs can develop informal, one-on-one relationships
with youngsters who need special attention. They can also reinforce the anti-drug
message in group activities, whether that includes a summer softball league or
classes on child care for teen mothers. Barnes-Coney became persuaded that many of
the youngsters she saw turn to drugs did so because they did not feel -good about
themselves. As a result, she organized teen self-esteem clubs designed to boost a
positive self-image.
The problem with many well-meaning educational approaches is that they find
their warmest acceptance among those at least risk, whereas the challenge lies in
developing a wide range of approaches in the hope of reaching a broad spectrum of
young people with different problems and needs. CPOs have the opportunity to serve
as positive role models themselves in a variety of initiatives aimed at young people, so
that they can transmit and reinforce the anti-drug message directly and indirectly.
Though they remain adult authority figures, their personal relationship with the
juveniles in their beat areas holds some promise that CPOs can breach the problem of
teenage rebellion against what grown-ups say. Their sustained presence in the com-
munity as a trusted adult also allows them to identify new drugs coming in, before
they become the latest "fashion," in the hope of launching efforts so that they never
become a fad or a persistent problem.
• Community Policing maintains a pro-family focus in dealing with drug

problems. As the example above demonstrates, Community Policing allows the
police to employ proactive strategies designed to support families in their anti-drug
efforts. All too often, the only time that many families see the traditional police is
when they arrive as adversaries, seeking information or making an arrest. Commun-
ity Policing allows youngsters to enjoy positive interactions with the police, so that
they are not simply authority figures who "will take you away if you are bad."
This important shift allows young people to talk openly to their CPOs, which is
what allowed Barnes-Coney to generate the trust necessary so that young people
would talk honestly to her about what they and their friends were thinking and
doing. An important element in her approach was to involve the parents in the
process whenever possible, allowing the family and the police to work together to
provide each other mutual support.
A hotly debated new law in Los Angeles has already led to the arrest of a mother
who was charged with failing to stop her son from involvement in gang activity.
Parental responsibility is an important issue in juvenile drug abuse and drug dealing,
but it is vitally important that the police not only focus on sanctions, but also on
providing families the law enforcement support they need in efforts to control their
youngsters. Parents often need help from the police to counteract the message many
young people receive from their peers, which is that adult authority can be ignored.
This message is reinforced in areas where serious crime has demanded so much
attention that many youngsters have good reason to believe that anything less than a
serious transgression will be ignored. By taking juveniles and their „misdeeds seri-
ously, CPOs can provide families the assistance they need in proving that laws must
be obeyed.
There has also been growing concern about so-called mercenary parents, those
who look the other way - or applaud - when their children make money from drug
trafficking. Community Policing can find and work with these families, and they can
initiate community-based efforts designed to put pressure on them to change. In
essence, this is a form of child abuse that the police must find new ways to confront.
Another problem the police must begin to contend with more directly is drug
abuse within families. This is a problem where special training might allow CPOs the
opportunity to do more. CPOs can link families to appropriate help, and they can
work to initiate community-based efforts to provide support to troubled families.
This might mean organizing people who would be willing to take a child into their
homes overnight when a parent comes home high - and abusive. Perhaps it could
mean recruiting retirees to babysit on occasion for the children of a recovering addict
who would benefit from a break, to make it easier for the addict to focus on rehabili-
tation and to resist temptation.
• Community Policing can serve as the link to public and private agencies that
can help. Estimates vary, but the best guess is that if all drug abusers asked for
treatment today, the existing system could handle only one of 10. Those who can
afford the substantial expense of private care can usually enter treatment more
quickly than those who must rely on public services - and those who have no insur-
ance or money to pay themselves are often least able to thread their way through the
bureaucratic maze to find the help that they need.
Another problem is helping people find the right kind of help. Some may have
serious drug problems that require residential detoxification, but others may fare
better with the free help available through groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous,
Narcotics Anonymous, or Cocaine Anonymous. Even then, local chapters may differ
in their willingness to accept multi-substance abusers. CPOs already play an impor-
tant role as the community's liaison to public and private agencies that can help with
problems ranging from potholes in the street to job counseling, so many are already
know about local drug treatment options available, or they could be encouraged to do
so. CPOs could also assist by using their special clout, when appropriate, to lobby for
priority status for emergency cases, especially those where domestic violence or
child neglect is a serious concern.
CPOs can also serve as facilitators to provide recovering addicts useful informa-
tion, since the consequences of addiction can include homelessness, unemployment,
and other health concerns. Community Policing demonstrates that the police are not
just there to arrest people, but to offer help to those trying to live within the law.
• Community Policing can tackle some of the root causes of drug abuse in new
ways. The long-term, proactive focus provided by Community Policing can provide a
way for the police to grapple with some of the underlying dynamics that foster drug
abuse in certain neighborhoods. People take drugs for many reasons, but the serious
drug problems that cluster in the inner city often serve as symptoms of deeper prob-
lems. People with too much time on their hands, trapped in decaying neighbor-
hoods, may find taking a chemical trip is the only vacation they can afford - at first.
By addressing the problems of social and physical decay in afflicted neighborhoods,
Community Policing might be able to shore up a community's ability to be more
drug-resistant overall.
Dealers have good reason to set up shop in run-down neighborhoods, because
such areas send a non-verbal but deafening message that the people who live there
are not organized and that they do not seem to care. As Community Policing begins
to stabilize the neighborhood, it can encourage people to organize and participate in
more community activities, reversing the downward cycle where open dealing drives
people into their homes, which encourages even more dealers to move in.
A person with a lucrative and interesting job, who owns an attractive home in a
good neighborhood - with a steep mortgage - can still fall victim to drugs, and they
often find they must go to the inner city to buy drugs, since open dealing would not
be tolerated in areas where they live. The bigger risk of addiction - and the more
profitable market for a dealer - is among those who have too much time on their
hands and little to lose, conditions all too common in decaying areas. Retail-level
drug dealers have learned to perfect the hard sell. Neighborhoods visibly on the
decline act as a magnet for their aggressive merchandising, so Community Policing's

ability to address all forms of disorder, whether that means graffitti, open begging, or
abandoned cars and buildings, may play an important but often overlooked role in
providing longer-range answers to the problems of drug abuse and drug dealing.
• Community Policing provides a logical mechanism for disseminating infor-

mation on AIDS and other diseases related to IV drug use. Failure to involve the
police in efforts to reduce the potential number of AIDS victims is short-sighted. Not
only are the police one of the most logical candidates for the job, because they come
in contact with many IV drug users, it is in their enlightened self-interest to do all
they can to reduce the spread of these disease, since AIDS victims in particular
threaten to put a tremendous strain on all local resources, the pie for which the
police must compete to receive their slice.
Of increasing concern as well is the growing legion of AIDS victims whose
disease has left them destitute. The police have good reason to worry, about a popu-
lation that may well turn to crime for the money to support themselves, especially
when these are desperate people who have reason to believe that they have already
received a death sentence.
In addition to overall public health efforts, CPOs can be encouraged to use their
local offices as a clearinghouse for information on preventing AIDS and other dis-
eases such as hepatitis-B caused by sharing needles. They can also enlist community
support in informational efforts, such as how to use bleach to clean needles. CPOs
can also disseminate information about agencies that offer assistance to those already
afflicted. Educating the community about the threat of AIDS can also enlist coopera-
tion and support for efforts aimed at closing down so-called shooting galleries, where
addicts often share infected needles.
• Community Policing adds both scope and continuity to the overall police
effort, providing sustained, citywide retail-drug enforcement without
underutilizing scarce resources. By using CPOs as the backbone of the depart-
ment's anti-drug efforts, police departments automatically extend their anti-drug
efforts beyond what any special unit, such as a narcotics division, can provide. In
essence, considering - and further exploiting - the ability of Community Policing to
fashion short- and long-term solutions to the entire spectrum of problems associated
with drugs that the police must face is a way to make drugs the top police priority
overall, as it is in the minds of most voters.
The mistake in talking about the drug crisis is that the traditional police
response to a crisis is to look for ways to make massive, short-term interventions to
bring the emergency under control, but without any coordinated follow-up - or
prevention. It can be argued that drugs have reached emergency status, in part,
because because of the failure to provide sustained, proactive police efforts in the
past. Street-sweeps and focused crackdowns allow the police to put their finger in the
dike, but the problem floods back once they remove their collective fingers.
Even Chief Bouza, whose comments demonstrated he was no fan of retail-level
enforcement, said that stabilizing neighborhoods depends on efforts that promote
"community cohesion" and that what is needed is an effort that can be instituted
and maintained citywide, with limited resources. That is an important prescription
that Community Policing fills best, because it is not a single-purpose approach, a
special unit with new budget demands, but a different and creative way of providing
basic police services.
No matter what the problem is, whether it's drug dealing or potholes in the
street, Community Policing provides a problem-solving approach, with CPOs in place
to listen to people and respond to their input and ideas. Community Policing is not a
tactic the police employ until they achieve a goal, and then they pulLthe officers for
use elsewhere. Instead it allows the police to deliver permanent, deceniralized, and
personalized police service. Only by multiplying the police presence, by involving the
people in the community who do not use drugs in the police process, can depart-
ments hope to bring drugs under control. Traditional efforts focus on the drug deal-
ers and users, but Community Policing recognizes that those who do not want to see
drugs sold and used in their neighborhoods hold an important key in solving this
society's drug problems.
Perhaps the most remarkable benefit of the Community Policing approach is
that once a specific goal, such as open drug dealing, has been accomplished, the CPO
is not left idle, but a CPO can then focus on the full range of crime and disorder
problems the community faces, problems that the community can help identify and
prioritize. CPOs are far more likely to suffer burnout than boredom.
• Community Policing allows departments to anticipate new drug problems

and also to plan efforts to repel them. In the past few years, many police depar-
ments knew that crack would eventually reach them, but few were able to do much
more than brace for the assault. Because of Community Policing's superior ability to
generate information, it can serve as the early warning system to call attention to the
problem at the first sign of trouble. There is also some hope that by mobilizing the
community in advance, neighborhoods can resist being overrun by new dealers and
new drugs. The time for the police to address drug problems is before the dealers are
supplying an entrenched pool of users eager to buy their wares. By alerting the
department as soon as new problems emerge and by strengthening communities
through efforts aimed at eliminating neighborhood decay, Community Policing may
be able to make communities more drug-resistant.
• Community Policing may help reduce the risk of civil disturbances and riot-
ing that could be triggered by aggressive anti-drug initiatives. Frustration
with open dealing has increased the pressure to take drastic action, such as sending
the National Guard or state militia into areas that appear to be out of control. There is
obvious danger that troops who are not properly trained for such assignments could
inadvertently spark civil disturbances or urban rioting.
A Community Policing approach deserves the opportunity to have its potential
explored before we risk causing more problems than we may solve. Establishing CPOs
in the community can help reduce tensions between the police department and the
community, particularly race relations, and this can help establish the authority
within the community that they need to take an aggressive anti-drug stance. CPOs
can also provide the sustained police presence in the community that offers the
opportunity for the department to maintain the gains that aggressive action, such as
-
street-sweeps and focused crackdowns, can achieve.
When ABC newsman Ted Koppel held an expanded Nightline segment on drugs
(March 9, 1989), following his prime-time special that focused on inner-city drug
problems, a number of District of Columbia residents who spoke talked about the
role of racism. Much to mainstream America's obvious surprise, as least as evidenced
in articles written later about that program, many blacks expressed sincere concern
that inner-city drug problems and the police response might constitute a conspiracy
aimed at what one participant called black genocide. Without debating the merits of
their arguments, their vehemence made it clear that many have serious concerns
that draconian, anti-drug initiatives pose a particular threat to the black community.
Police departments must remember the lesson of the turbulent late 1960s and early
1970s, which is that police departments must reach out to minority communities, to
enlist their support in efforts to make their neighborhoods safer. Ignoring history
could doom us to repeat past mistakes, and Community Policing provides a coordi-
nated and creative way for departments to encourage participation and support,
without inciting further paranoia.
• Community Policing provides an important new element in a department's

approach to drugs that offers the hope of allowing them to develop an effec-
tive and affordable drug strategy. As the analysis of existing drug strategies in
various police departments demonstrates, the element that has been lacking is an
effective and affordable citywide effort that can help stabilize neighborhoods. If
departments with Community Policing considered the approach as their first-line of
defense, and other communities without it understood how it can work, they could
begin to fashion an overall drug strategy that holds greater promise of making short-
and long-term improvements on many fronts. With additional funding, for more
officers and specialized training, Community Policing could well achieve far more
than it already does in providing both immediate solutions and long-term prevention.
Community Policing makes an important contribution to the three main areas
that an intelligent drug strategy must address. It focuses its energies toward street
level each day, at the transactions where supply and demand meet. It has also dem-
onstrated the ability to generate large amounts of high-quality intelligence about local
dealing patterns that aim upwards at Mr. Big. Community Policing has always been
known for its ability to target juveniles for special attention, which has great poten-
tial to address both young gangs and juvenile drug abuse. If police departments think
of Community Policing as an essential and integral part of their overall drug strategy,
the War on Drugs may see some important new victories.
An Intelligent and Effective Response

It also seems increasingly urgent to explore what Community Policing can offer,
since mounting frustration with society's collective inability to bring drugs under
control carries the risk we will overreact and embrace extreme solutions. Despite the
increasing attention paid to decriminalization, on one extreme, the reality is that the
political mood of the country makes it more likely that people will instead more likely
support increasingly draconian measures.
The danger is not only that such solutions threaten our cherished civil rights,
but they rarely work as intended. Consider, for example, the get-tough proposal to
throw all drug users out of public housing. At first glance, it sounds like the right
thing to do - after all, taxpayers have good reason to balk at subsidizing drug abuse.
Yet a closer looks shows that, given the lack of treatment slots available, the end
result might well be that this would simply add these people to the growing pool of
homeless addicts already on the streets - a far less appealing prospect than we may
have supposed.
At the National Institute of Justice Conference in Washington, D.C. , on the DUF
results, a respected police chief on the program openly advocated what he called
draconian solutions. One involved revoking all licenses held by drug users - driver's
licenses, cosmetician and barber's licenses, licenses to practice medicine and the law.
He also supported permanently tattooing ADDICT on all convicted users' foreheads.
While his outrage at the casual acceptance - and even glorification - of drug use in
this society is easily understandable, it raises questions about whether we are losing
perspective. Drugs are a scourge, but are drug users a bigger threat than murderers,
child molesters, rapists, or even drunk drivers? Responsible organizations would not
devote time to a serious discussion about tattooing those words on people's fore-
heads, yet the criminal justice system's frustration with drugs mirrors the growing
public clamor to do something
Before we risk doing the wrong things just to demonstrate our will to do some-
thing, Community Policing deserves a chance to demonstrate whether it can achieve
some badly needed victories in the War on Drugs. Doing more of the same old things
offers little likelihood of success, and there is obvious danger in experimenting with
extremes. Community Policing is a fresh and imaginative approach, but it is not
exotic, dramatic - or easily conveyed in a catchy slogan. Perhaps we should consider
that most realistic solutions are often more likely to sound sensible,
not sensational. Community Policing is a subtle but bold new way for the police to focus
their energies on solving many of the serious problems that drugs pose. It allows
police departments to get tough on drugs, while maintaining respect for civil rights,
by harnessing the creative energies of the people and the police working together.
NOTES
' Kelling, George L., telephone interview at his office at Harvard University, May 15, 1989.
Hackett, George (with bureau assistance), On the Firing Line, Newsweek, May 29, 1989. p. 32.
Calkins, Richard, Drug Abuse Trends 1986, Office of Substance Abuse Services - Data Evaluation,
Michigan Department of Public Health, Lansing, MI.
4 Johnston, Lloyd D., Drug Use Among American High School Students, University of Michigan,
School of Social Research, Ann Arbor, MI.
Wagner, Michael G., Police Brutality: the Ugly Issue Returns, Detroit Free Press, January 22, 1989, p.
land p. 6.
Hackett.
- Relevant publications - Mark A.R. Kleiman:
Kleiman, Mark A.R. , and Smith, Kerry D., State and Local Drug Enforcement: In Search
of a Strategy, Working Paper #89-01-14, cited with permission of author, Harvard
University, John E Kennedy School of Government, Program in Criminal Justice Policy
and Management, Cambridge, MA.
Kleiman, Mark A.R., Barnett, Arnold, Bouza, Anthony V., and Burke, Kevin M., Street
Level Drug Enforcement: Examining the Issues, edited by Marcia R. Chaiken, National
Institute of Justice, Issues and Practices, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, DC,
August 1988.
Kleiman, Mark A.R., Drug Abuse Control Policy, Working Paper #88-01-12, Harvard
University, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Program in Criminal Justice Policy
and Management, Cambridge, MA.
Kleiman, Mark A.R., Making and Evaluating Drug Abuse Policies, Harvard University,
John F. Kennedy School of Government, Program in Criminal Justice Policy and
Management, Cambridge, MA, June 1, 1987.
Relevant publications - Mark H. Moore:
Moore, Mark H., Policies to Achieve Discrimination in the Effective Price of Heroin,
American Economic Review, May 1973.
Moore, Mark H., Buy or Bust: The Effective Regulation of an Illicit Market in Heroin
(Lexington, MA: D.C. Health Co., 1976).
Moore, Mark H., Limiting the Supplies of Drugs to Illicit Markets, Journal of Drug Issues.
Spring 1979.
Moore, Mark H., The Police and Drugs, Perspectives on Policing National-Institute of
Justice, Washington, DC, forthcoming.
From the letter to the authors from A.R. Kleiman.
' Kleiman & Smith, State and Local Drug Enforcement: In Search of a Strategy
10 Reuter, Peter; Haaga, John; Murphy, Patrick; and Praskac, Amy, Drug Use and Drug Programs in the
Washington Metropolitan Area, The RAND Corporation, R-3655-GWRC, July 1988.
" Bouza, in Street-Level Drug Enforcement: Examining the Issues.
Ibid.
13 Kleiman & Smith.
14 Morganthau, Tom, with bureau assistance, Murder Wave in the Capital, Newsweek, March 13, 1989.
1 ' Koppel, Ted, introducing the ABC Television Nightline segment on drug violence in Washington, DC,
March 9, 1989.
16 Pooley, Eric, Fighting Back Against Crack, New York Magazine, January 12, 1989, p. 39.
Turque, Bill (with bureau assistance), Why Justice Can't Be Done, Newsweek, May 29, 1989.
18 Pooley.
19 Turque.
" Castine, John, and Lowery, Mark, Many caught; few jailed, Detroit Free Press, April 3, 1988.

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CHAPTER 10

Community Policing and Drugs

Stabilizing a neighborhood requires a strat-

in place to evaluate the results and make appropriate changes.

Research on Police Strategies Aimed at Drugs

Efforts Aimed at Juveniles

The Real Police World

As these examples demonstrate, different departments have adopted different

The Community Policing Contribution

• Community Policing directly addresses the problems of discreet and indis-

its CPOs to prepare communities to accept aggressive tactics such as coordinated

• Community Policing attacks street-level dealing in ways that need not

• Community Policing develops and bolsters community participation in anti-

• Community Policing can harness the vigilante impulse and channel it in

• Community Policing enlists the direct cooperation of credible informants.

• Community Policing can best employ problem-solving tactics aimed at drug-

• Community Policing can target juveniles, particularly high-risk youngsters,

• Community Policing maintains a pro-family focus in dealing with drug

decline act as a magnet for their aggressive merchandising, so Community Policing's

• Community Policing provides a logical mechanism for disseminating infor-

• Community Policing allows departments to anticipate new drug problems

be able to make communities more drug-resistant.

• Community Policing provides an important new element in a department's

An Intelligent and Effective Response

- Relevant publications - Mark A.R. Kleiman:

Relevant publications - Mark H. Moore:

From the letter to the authors from A.R. Kleiman.

" Bouza, in Street-Level Drug Enforcement: Examining the Issues.

13 Kleiman & Smith.

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