THE CHOICE: GO STRAIGHT OR GO TO JAIL

Program Targets Neighborhood Dealers

RALEIGH - The frail man with wiry gray hair approached the driver's
side window of the waiting car, confident he would make a drug sale.
For years, his objective had been to sell drugs to get drugs. It had
always gone smoothly. But this time, in the fall of 2006, it was
different. His customer had a hidden camera recording it all. Two
months later, that video would come back to haunt Burlee Kersey.

He and 15 others from a Southeast Raleigh neighborhood targeted by
police would be taken to the Chavis Park community center.

They would be presented with the evidence against them and given a
choice: Go straight or go to jail. That choice began their journey to
extract themselves from the life they had lived for years.

Raleigh police have been frustrated for years by street-level drug
markets, which diminish neighborhoods and lower confidence in law
enforcement. Mass sweeps are only temporary fixes. Drug users drift
back to old locations and continue to make dealing their livelihood.
It's a grim cycle for the neighborhood and for the desperate figures
who work the streets. In High Point, police found a way to break the
cycle. They watched a drug-ridden neighborhood and collected evidence
before initiating a sweep to arrest the major dealers. Then they
rounded up the small-time dealers -- some selling just to support
their own addictions -- and gave them a chance to forgo prison by
rehabilitating their lives. The operation significantly reduced crime
in the targeted area.

Officials in Raleigh were intrigued. Then-Police Chief Jane Perlov
dispatched a crew to High Point to see whether the program might work
in the Capital City.

"A lot of people came back and said, 'This looks like it's worth
giving a try,' " she said at a community meeting announcing the
project in December 2006. The program would target Southeast Raleigh's
South Park, a community five blocks long and wide, from Martin Luther
King Jr. Boulevard down to Hoke Street and from South Wilmington
Street over to Garner Road. South Park consists mostly of old homes
with elderly residents, but several deteriorating houses stand out.
They are crack houses, where people sometimes disappear for days at a
time while getting high. Prostitutes linger on streets nearby.

Amid these worn homes and forlorn corners, Raleigh police would try a
new approach. This would be where Creating Hope and Opportunities in
Communities Everywhere, better known as The CHOICE Project, was born.
Compelling invitation Burlee Kersey and the 15 others gathered at
Chavis Park more than a year ago because of an invitation from the
police they found hard to turn down: "I have proof that you are
involved in selling drugs. I am inviting you to a meeting ... at [the]
Chavis Park Community Center. You will not be arrested." Their loved
ones had also been invited to help them make the decision to accept
the rehabilitation program being offered.

On one of the room's walls, a projection screen lit up. The image on
the screen was an old man with wiry salt-and-pepper hair, selling
drugs to an undercover investigator.

"That's you, isn't it?" a police officer said to Kersey. Kersey didn't
answer. He could only look at the screen. Kersey, then 71, had spent
50 years doing drugs. He had stolen, robbed and sold drugs to get his
next high. Sometimes, he said, it hurt to think about all he had lost
to his habit. He sacrificed relationships with his children. There
were grandchildren he never met.

After all these years, Kersey was tired. He wasn't sure how the
program was going to help him, but he chose that day to give it a
chance. Age 9, started in crime Braderick Peak was only 9 years old
when he was given a package containing heroin and told to take it down
the street. He wasn't given money for the delivery. Instead, he said,
"I was paid in fun."

That meant a night of pizza, soft drinks and usually a trip to a
miniature golf course or a local arcade -- much more important to a
9-year-old than cash. Eventually, the deliveries became sales.

He has been in and out of police custody throughout his life, and his
criminal history includes more than two dozen arrests since 1993. When
Peak found himself in the community room at Chavis Park, he pondered
the offer before him. Now 31, he has children and a girlfriend who
depend on him. Making $40 every so often on a drug deal isn't what he
wants for them -- or himself. He had never had somebody offer to help
him change his life. He wasn't immediately willing to trust.

But the alternative was jail. "I wanted what they were offering," he
said. "But I didn't know how they were going to do it."

Nerves aside, he was in. Looking for success What happened next would
be new for everyone involved. The Raleigh Police Department, equipped
with statistics and testimonials from residents and law enforcement
officials in High Point, was setting out to emulate what had been a
success for another city. Neighborhood residents, many of whom thought
they had used up their options to clean up their streets, were giving
it one more try. Their job would be to work together as a community
and report crime as they saw it happen. The 16 people chosen for the
diversion program were just hoping to stay out of jail -- and to build
some semblance of a normal life. But there were no guarantees, as they
all would soon find out.