A SHIFTING DRUG DEMOGRAPHIC

Whites outnumbered minorities for drug arrests last year as open air
markets gave way to increased heroin use.

For the first time in years, police arrested more whites than
minorities for drug offenses in Madison, new city and state reports
show.

Police have been criticized for arresting a disproportionate number of
African Americans compared to whites, who make up most of the city's
population.

"The reduction in African American arrests is a positive. We hope that
trend continues," said Stephen Braunginn, president of the Urban
League of Greater Madison.

Arrest patterns changed in 2000 as a reflection of the city's evolving
drug challenge, especially from heroin and "club" drugs such as
ecstasy, Police Chief Richard Williams and others said.

Police are still attacking open air crack-cocaine markets in
low-income, African American neighborhoods but are focusing more on
heroin, powder cocaine in bars, such as the former Jocko's Rocket Ship
Downtown, and drug use at youth dance parties called raves, said Lt.
Bill Housley, commander of the Dane County Narcotics and Gang Task
Force.

"We're going after a broad spectrum of the drug problem," Housley
said.

Overall, drug arrests continued to increase, from 340 in 1995 to 773
last year, the new crime statistics show.

In response, City Council president Dorothy Borchardt has scheduled a
special briefing for the council and Public Safety Review Board for 5
p.m. March 29.

"Things have changed in Madison," she said. "Is what we are doing
effective? And where do we go from here?"

Williams said, "One of the major things we now have to decide is, has
the drug scene changed in a way that we should be manipulating the
task force for that change?"

The new statistics clearly show changing trends.

In 1995, 62 percent of 340 adult drug arrests were African Americans.
Last year, 53 percent of 773 such arrests were white. The change is
reflected in juvenile arrests too.

But the percentage of African American arrests is still
disproportionate with population.

"That is an ongoing concern for us," Braunginn said.

It's because the task force must still deal with open air drug markets
in African American neighborhoods, mostly around the Allied Drive and
Cypress-Marigold areas, police said.

The police, in fact, used the city's controversial anti-loitering
ordinance to make 53 drug arrests last year.

It's important to be vigilant in neighborhoods because the
crack-cocaine trade is forced upon innocent residents, which is
different than someone going to a bar or rave to buy or use drugs,
Williams said.

But other drugs are causing problems, police said.

The city is clearly experiencing a serious influx of powerful heroin,
Housley said. There were four heroin-related deaths between 1993 and
1998, but 14 such deaths in the last 26 months, he said.

"There's no one group ethnically or age wise," Housley said. "It's
pretty much across the board."

The task force is focusing on heroin sources, he said, declining to
discuss details.

Meanwhile, club drugs ecstasy and ketamine, a sedative used as an
animal tranquilizer, are popular among young, white youth who go to
raves, Housley said. The task force is paying more attention to the
"rave scene," he said.

Already this year, police have arrested members of the P-Stone Nation,
a Chicago gang that was selling crack-cocaine from the East Side,
Housley said. Authorities have other major operations underway, he
said.

But the city needs a broad discussion about prevention, intervention,
treatment and enforcement, city officials, police and others said.

"I think our drug problem is a societal problem, not an enforcement
problem." Housley said.