A REALITY DOSE FOR KIDS ON THE EDGE

November 7, 1999
NAME: Ron Glodoski

BACKGROUND: "How to Be a Successful Criminal: The Real Deal on Crime,
Drugs, and Easy Money" by Ron Glodoski and Allen Fahden, with Judy Grant
(Turn Around Publishing, $14.95) is based on Glodoski's experiences as a
gang leader and drug dealer in Milwaukee. After 20 years of criminal
activity, Glodoski stopped using and dealing drugs and became involved in a
series of legitimate businesses, including a teddy bear company. These days
he leads workshops on violence prevention and is a motivational speaker in
schools, prisons and detention centers. (Call 800-968-6863 for more
information.)

Q--Is there such a thing as a successful criminal?

A--I've never met one. I've known thousands of drug dealers in my
time, and I never knew one that successfully retired. A lot of them
end up dead. A lot of them end up in jail. Some of them lose their
wives, their families.

Q--Can you be successful for a while?

A--Doing the drug business, you might retire with some money
sometimes. But the white picket fence and the house in the country
just don't exist. You lose so much of your own sanity. Lots of people
I know, lots of kids, they owe somebody some money, they'll kill
anybody to get it.

Q--Criminals aren't really leading the good life?

A--If you watch TV programs like "Miami Vice," you always see the drug
dealers with two, three gold chains on and a pocket full of money and
there's women around and they're all driving fancy cars. I've known a
lot of people who've paid people $5,000 a week or more in drug
dealing, but you know what happens? Greed takes over. There were times
I made $10,000, $15,000 a week. But there were other times where I
lost $90,000 in five minutes.

Q--Kids don't think of that part.

A--The way the media portray the criminal is a lie. So many kids go
toward that lifestyle because they see drug dealers with their beepers
and cell phones and their fast cars, but they don't look far enough
ahead to see where they are in a year or two.

Q--Why do kids think they'll be the ones to beat the
odds?

A--They have a vivid imagination. They all think they're going to make
it. And the problem is, nobody makes it. On TV, on most programs, in
the last five minutes the drug dealer gets blown away. But before then
they've got power, money, prestige -- everything.

Q--Do criminals think of crime as their job?

A--Some people take it very seriously as a business. But most of them
lose their edge after a little while. If you want to be good at crime,
it takes you four or five years to learn it. It takes the same skills
to be good at crime as it does in a regular business. The problem is,
with crime, you've got a $5 billion army against you. The DEA, the
FBI, the police department -- they're all against you. Where with a
legitimate business, they're there to help you.

Q--How do you try to reach kids?

A--I do a lot of programs in schools, and most of the kids, by the
time they hit junior high and high school, a lot of them are numb. A
lot have been beaten down with words and name-calling, verbal abuse.
Most of them have lost their hopes and dreams by the time they're 12
years old. And to tell a kid that they can be successful at anything,
they just don't see that.

Q--They expect life to be terrible?

A--Yeah. "There's nothing else I'm going to accomplish. I'm stupid
anyway -- that's what I've been told my whole life." Between that, and
then seeing TV, they think maybe they can make the big bucks, and
maybe get into it for six months, a year, and get out. The problem is
greed takes over and nobody gets out.

Q--How would you turn that around?

A--I believe every kid in the world is brilliant. In order to help the
kids who are numb, we need to get them to feel they are worthwhile,
that they are precious.

Q--And give them choices?

A--They see something they want and they don't know how else they can
get to it besides drug dealing. But you can show a kid he can make a
lot more money legitimately than he can illegally. Start your own
business. You might not want to go to college, so take an
apprenticeship. Be a roofer. Start a company.