Imagine for a moment that the government was trying to stem the flow oranges into the country. Well, this would be the equivalent of seizing 20 crates of Oranges, while billions still make into supermarkets across the nation.
Will this arrest in any way reduce the availability of heroin in Baltimore? Of course not, not even for half a day.
Will another distribution operation, one that is even smarter and more secretive than before, pop up in the next few days. Of course it will.
Will these criminals be kept in jail, unable to peddle drugs for at least a few years?
Hill pleaded guilty to an intent-to-distribute charge in 2004, and received a suspended sentence with probation. The year after, he violated his probation and was ordered to spend a year in prison, electronic court records show.
Burton was charged with drug possession last June and was given one-year probation by a city District Court judge. That probation ended July 24.
Who can be sure?
After more than a MONTH of extremely expensive surveillance and thousands of man hours, the police have effectively done NOTHING.
Such is progress.
Update: By the way, if anyone in Baltimore, Annapolis, or DC want to really do something about drugs and violence associated with their illegal status, try legalization.
Roughly speaking, therefore, there have been two periods with high homicide rates in U.S. history, the 1920-1934 period and the 1970-1990 period (Friedman 1991). Both before the first episode and between these two episodes, homicide rates were relatively low or clearly declining. Prima facie, this pattern is consistent with the hypothesis that alcohol prohibition increased violent crime: homicide rates are high in the 1920-1933 period, when constitutional prohibition of alcohol was in effect; the homicide rate drops quickly after 1933, when Prohibition was repealed; and the homicide rate remains low for a substantial period thereafter. Further, the homicide rate is low during the 1950s and early 1960s, when drug prohibition was in existence but not vigorously enforced, but high in the 1970-1990 period, when drug prohibition was enforced to a relatively stringent degree (Miron 1999).
(image and caption originally posted at EH.net encyclopedia)
1 comment:
Any and all tatics, legal of course, need to be on the line and employed to reduce crime.
Residents in the city have to be numb from the level of crime around them. I can not imagine what their perspective must be to endure a homicide rate that staggers the mind. That a young male, living in Baltimore would accept the fact that he will not survive to be an adult speaks volumes. How much respect can this child have for other lives when his own life is a throw away.
Solving crime (reforming drug policy and zero tolerance are just some of the tools available to acheive results) is a virtuous cycle. Solve crime and the quality of life for hundreds of thousands of citizens improve, improve the qualtiy of life and business activity picks up. More business activity gets more revenue, more revenue improves education, bettter education improves the quality of life and the cycle goes on.
At the heart and foundation of this process is good leadership and a vision and a belief that the process can be changed. The change starts first and foremost with the leadership of our public representatives. Our mayor and police commisioner and other key officials need to get on the same page and pull in the same direction. The city cannot function with a dispirited and chastened police force, it cannot function with public officials not willing to learn from their mistakes, and it cannot function without teamwork.
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