New Haven Independent

As out of control teen violence continues with another teen shooting (click here for Register story), the New Haven police department’s top response has been making and publicizing massive arrests of small-time dealers through ID-Net sweeps. Such “zero-tolerance” saturation arrests have been shown nationally to rid particular streets of crime for a day but not to lower crime over time. Indeed, crime keeps rising in New Haven.
Meanwhile, violent crime and drug-dealing have been tumbling … not in New Haven anymore, but down in High Point, N.C. Because the police there — led by a former George W. Bush appointee, of all people — have embraced a strategy that New Haven used to employ in the ’90s. It de-emphasizes arrests. It operates at 180-degree odds with ID-Net-type sweeps. The police forgo mass sweeps and arrests, which while pleasing some residents in the short term lead to increased distrust over time because of harsh streetcorner encounters. Instead, the High Point police build up intelligence through meticulous undercover fact-gather, by working with the families of non-violent offenders and even many of the offenders themselves, to nab the higher-level suppliers and violent bigshots behind the scenes and to move the drug trade away from public view. They also present younger kids in the life, who can still be saved from a lifelong criminal career track, with video evidence of their dealing, and a choice between jail or programs to land them in jobs.
The remarkable results appear in this Wall Street Journal story. Stories like this were written about New Haven once upon a time. Read it, and post your comments below.