DRIVING OUT CRACK

Crack cocaine can devastate a neighborhood almost as completely as it
destroys a human body. Crime rates increase. Neighbors no longer feel safe.
The addicted and the dealers rule the streets. Consider a few examples of
the grip crack has on Indianapolis, now struggling with problems faced by
other cities years ago: * A recent study found that more than half of last
year's record number of 158 homicides were related to illegal drugs, largely
crack. * In 1994, 50 percent of people arrested tested positive for
cocaine, a figure that has dropped slightly since then. * In May, police
said a suspect confessed to 200 burglaries on the Eastside and Southside to
support his drug habit. Police said the 30-year-old man told them he needed
$300 to $500 a day to buy crack. * In April, a mother was sentenced to 40
years in prison for selling her 11-year-old daughter to men for sex in
exchange for crack money. While the city wrestles with problems caused by
the drug trade, progress has been made in a few neighborhoods, most notably
in areas of Haughville, once riddled with crack houses, addicts and dealers.
Marion County Prosecutor Scott Newman visited the 200 block of North Temple
Avenue on the city's Eastside last week for a news conference in which he
announced his office had helped evict drug dealers from more than 500 homes
in the past two years. Half of the evictions were on the Eastside. Critics,
including neighborhood residents, say crack dealers have merely shifted
their base of operations, sometimes only a block or two from their original
sites. Dealers -- along with addicts, prostitutes and the rest of the crowd
that follows them -- won't disappear simply because of arrests or evictions.
But the prosecutor's strategy is sound. The idea is to make doing business
as tough as possible.

Raids, prosecution and subsequent evictions can keep dealers from
comfortably maintaining control of neighborhoods. The prosecutor's office
also is encouraging residents to fight for their neighborhoods. The office
is distributing to community organizations free copies of a video,
Crackback: One Neighborhood at a Time, which offers suggestions on how to
drive crack dealers and addicts from a neighborhood. By forming CrimeWatch
clubs, neighbors can collectively monitor their area and alert police to
suspects. Community policing and anti-drug marches, in which residents at
least for a time take back their streets, also can be effective. While crack
is a problem with which the entire city must cope, residents in individual
neighborhoods can protect themselves and their homes one block at a time. In
time, if the history of other cities is repeated here, the crack trade will
diminish.

The goal, meanwhile, is to save as many neighborhoods as possible.

Checked-by: "Rolf Ernst"