Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Criminal Justice Contacts of Users and Sellers of Hard Drugs in Harlem

2000; Albany Law School; Volume: 63; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

0002-4678

William R. Davis, Bruce D. Johnson,

Crime Patterns and Interventions

I. BACKGROUND Current American social policy and laws prescribe specific jail and prison time for those arrested for the sale and use of hard drugs (heroin, crack, and cocaine powder).(1) This policy is supported in part by the fact that persons selling and using crack, cocaine powder, and heroin frequently violate other criminal statutes.(2) They are likely to commit violent crimes, such as robbery, homicide, and aggravated assault, as well as property crimes, such as shoplifting, theft, burglary, fraud, and cons. They are also likely to participate in other street economic activities, including commercial sex work and assisting in drug sales as lookouts, pitchers, and packagers. Moreover, they routinely engage in behaviors labeled as quality-of-life violations, such as subway fare beating and marijuana smoking.(3) Severe sanctions against drugs users and sellers are promoted by politicians who wish to demonstrate their law and order missions, promoting policies that are tough on to help get elected.(4) Arrest and incarceration of criminals are the most popular solutions to the problem among politicians, policy makers, and American voters.(5) During the past decade, police departments have been reorganized and mobilized to target sellers of hard drugs for arrest and imprisonment and to arrest hard drug users for misdemeanor crimes.(6) Special units have vigorously targeted sellers of hard drugs.(7) Persons convicted of crack selling and/or of several grams of crack have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms under mandatory sentencing statutes,s In New York State, the Rockefeller Drug Laws of 1973 contained provisions for sentencing sellers of heroin and narcotics to lifetime imprisonment.(9) With the advent of crack cocaine in the mid-1980s, federal legislation mandated a minimum sentence of five years for of over five grams of crack. This same penalty was imposed for 500 grams of cocaine powder.(10) Tens of thousands of persons have served, or are currently serving, sentences for drug offenses.(11) The policy-making rhetoric and harsh penalties are specifically targeted at sellers, dealers, traffickers, and peddlers.(12) Yet, virtually all anti-drug legislation also contains strong provisions criminalizing the possession of specified amounts of illegal hard drugs (mainly heroin, crack, and cocaine hydrochloride);(13) such statutes against are clearly targeted at users of these illegal drugs. Not only have statutes been altered, but New York City and State have invested heavily in criminal justice approaches aimed at solving the drug problem.(14) In the 1990s, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) enhanced enforcement of drug laws by adopting a policy of zero tolerance for of offenses.(15) Misdemeanor offenses are sometimes strictly enforced in high crime areas as a tactic to gain information about more serious offenses from those who commit quality of life crimes.(16) Since the mid-1990s, the NYPD has reorganized its management system around the process for intelligence gathering and allocating and tracking police resources.(17) Police management effectively employ data compilations of the location of crimes, complaints of crime and arrests, displayed on electronic pin-maps formatted and generated by Geographical Information Systems (GIS) software.(18) When Compstat maps indicate high concentrations of certain types of crime in particular areas of New York City, the NYPD directs the necessary police resources to those areas to arrest the alleged perpetrators.(19) These pin maps locate crimes, allegations of crimes, and arrests.(20) Moreover, they are used to deploy and track police, applying specially trained units to supplement precinct police in suppressing particular types of crime.(21) Narcotics enforcement relies upon complaints or allegations of drug-related activities to identify areas for intensified policing, usually directed by special drug squads. …