UIC RESEARCHER OPENS NEW DEBATE ON DRUG CRIMES

University of Illinois at Chicago criminologist John Hagedorn said he hoped
his new study on drug dealing in the inner city would "force a debate" on
the issue.

Mayor John Norquist of Milwaukee, where Hagedorn conducted his field
research, was glad to oblige. "The conclusions reached by the author are
what one would expect from drug-addled minds," Norquist wrote in response.
He called the 30-page report "farcical . . . twisted . . . an insult . . .
a celebration of criminality."

What tied hizzoner's knickers into a knot was Hagedorn's view of the ghetto
drug trade as a well-ordered, operationally logical source of employment
and entrepreneurial opportunity for those with few other options.
Hagedorn's work refers to "drug businessmen (who) work long hours," says
dealing "is in many ways an innovative . . . small-business venture" and
concludes that "much of what we call `crime' is actually work."

With research help from former gang members, Hagedorn, 50, spent much of
1997 studying drugs as commerce in two low-income Milwaukee
neighborhoods--one predominately black, one predominately Hispanic. What he
found tended to belie the stereotype that drug-riddled neighborhoods know
only anarchy.

The "drug entrepreneurs," as Hagedorn calls many pushers, are simply part
of a vast, informal economy that has taken the place of the jobs that have
left the central city. Drugs as an industry support some 10 percent of the
men aged 18 to 29 in these neighborhoods, according to Hagedorn, but the
gross receipts from such enterprises are generally so modest--an average of
$5,000 a month--that the analogy with conventional small business is
appropriate.

"Where other academics see a tangle of pathologies, I see rationality and
very recognizable American values," Hagedorn said in an interview Friday.
The drug dealers in low-income neighborhoods "have a strong work ethic and
are trying to make a buck, get ahead and stay safe."

Hagedorn's theory is that recent declines in violent crime have less to do
with extra cops and longer prison sentences than with the stabilization of
the drug marketplace. The sellers and runners "have worked out their
relationships with suppliers, customers and rivals in an effort to
coexist," he said.

His report, "The Business of Drug Dealing in Milwaukee," is a continuation
of his 1988 book "People and Folks," (updated and republished this month by
Chicago's Lake View Press) which challenged the conventional view of gang
members as simply predatory animals."

Typical sentimental ivory-tower apologetics from an avowed leftist
academic? Those who thought so were surprised to see Hagedorn's offering
this month sponsored and published by the conservative Wisconsin Policy
Research Institute.

But when you read beyond Hagedorn's provocative talking points on drug as
business you find him rejecting such liberal solutions as government jobs
programs and legalization of drugs. At the same time he rejects as futile
the conservative idea that if society just locks up enough users and
pushers it can win the war on drugs.

Instead he proposes a "conservative but daring" approach that would include
maintaining strong social disapproval of drug use, alternative sentencing
for non-violent drug offenders and increased efforts to bring the private
sector back into the neighborhoods it has largely abandoned.

He said he didn't mean to sugarcoat the terrible toll that drug abuse has
taken on these communities. Rather, he said, his intent was to show how the
organization of the drug trade suggests such areas are ripe for the sorts
of legitimate-business reinvestment that could lead to long-term improvements.

"The drug problem is rooted in economics--not sin and evil--and so it needs
an economic solution," said Hagedorn, sounding a theme he said he hopes
will resonate across the political spectrum.

James Miller, president of the conservative think-tank that funded the
study, noted in a preface that he "may differ" with some of Hagedorn's
recommendations. But he concluded with a sentiment with which even the
angry mayor of Milwaukee must agree, "We are not likely to find solutions
to difficult issues until we fully understand the dimensions of the
problem."

Checked-by: Richard Lake