

Focusing on drug markets rather than users means less crime (2012) - edward
http://www.economist.com/node/21548989

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harshreality
Once past the confusing label of DMI (Drug Market Intervention -- isn't
throwing people in prison a type of intervention, too?), this seems to be
about one main concept:

Approach drug dealers with alternatives for their lives, intervention that can
actually work, rather than prison. In other words, an alternative, parallel
criminal justice system that doesn't rely on incarceration or criminal
records.

The rest is just adjustments to police response in the area.

The catch is it requires _support_ from the community. You need the people it
lists[1] (i.e. enough of the community) behind the effort. Otherwise there's
nobody to show up to the intervention meetings, and nobody to call police for
aggressive intervention. And even if the community is behind it, the police
and prosecutors have to be willing to agree to such deals, and set up such
meetings.

This kind of non-criminal intervention not only has a good chance (much better
chance than prison does) of changing dealers' minds about drug dealing, but
their change in attitudes can also help change the minds of other drug dealers
they're associated with. It also doesn't upend their lives with felony
convictions.

It's worth noting also that this works because drug dealing socially isolates
drug dealers from people who otherwise could help them. People involved with
drugs won't always admit to it, even to close friends and relatives; and
friends and relatives may not _want_ to know or be involved, because that
might put _them_ at risk of being charged with drug crimes. Decriminalizing
drugs would have much the same effect of removing barriers between drug
dealers and their relatives and communities. The one thing this intervention
approach misses, compared to decriminalization, is that while drugs remain
illegal, the pathologies of black markets, created by criminalization, remain.

Who still thinks that our prison system works, on average, to rehabilitate?
Those criminals who are rehabilitated do so in spite of the prison system and
criminal justice system, not because of it. There's just overall not enough
will or resources to go with a more productive
intervention/psychological/sociological approach to most crimes.

[1] > "[When three drug dealers accepted the offer] they met not only police
and prosecutors, but also family members, people from their communities,
pastors from local churches and representatives from social-service agencies.
Their neighbours and relatives told them that dealing drugs was hurting their
families and communities."

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volune
Criminalizing less victimless activity means less crime.

