INSITE NO BROKEN WINDOW

While in British Columbia for an economic conference last week,
Rudolph Giuliani pronounced the supervised-injection site in
Vancouver's Downtown Eastside a "terrible mistake." Mr. Giuliani's
tough-on-crime track record may qualify him to talk about the benefits
of vigorous policing but his criticism of Insite is misplaced.
Further, it seems inconsistent with the broken-windows theory of
policing: the basis for his "zero-tolerance" approach to crime while
mayor of New York City.

Mr. Giuliani was elected mayor in 1994 partly on his promise to
address quality-of-life issues, among them squeegee men, the homeless
and panhandlers on New York City streets. He appointed William Bratton
as police commissioner. Building upon the broken-windows theory that
perceptions of safety are reduced by "untended" behaviour, such as
disorderliness or incivility, and that addressing quality-of-life
offences will inhibit more serious criminality, they applied a
zero-tolerance policy, though the broken-windows theory itself
espouses discretionary policing: educating some offenders, warning
others and arresting only a few.

Although the crime rate in New York dropped substantially, a number of
criminologists maintain that the downward trend had less to do with
zero tolerance than an increased number of police officers, a
strengthening economy (fostering revitalization of neighbourhoods) and
a reduction in crack cocaine use. Crack cocaine use in New York was
common in the mid-1980s and this cheap, highly addictive and sometimes
deadly drug became the focus of the so-called War on Drugs, which by
then was predominantly waged through prohibition and law enforcement.
Prohibition, however, has not been successful. In 2006, almost half of
high school students in the United States report it is very or fairly
easy to obtain cocaine. Almost 40 per cent reported having little
difficulty obtaining crack cocaine.

While Mr. Giuliani is free to claim credit for the reduction of crime
rates while he was mayor, his likening of supervised-injection sites
to an encouragement of the use of drugs, and his claim that
safe-injection sites are "just going to make your drug problem much
worse," reveal a lack of awareness of the aim (and achievement) of
safe-injection sites. Insite's main purpose is to reduce the spread of
infectious disease among intravenous drug users and to offering
counselling about rehabilitation - objectives that are consistent with
the broken-windows theory.

Failure to take steps to reduce disease transmission will lead to
greater social ills, much as one broken window left untended results
in a building full of broken windows. With all due respect for Mr.
Giuliani, who distinguished himself in the aftermath of the collapse
of the World Trade Center towers, he and the American war-on-drugs
model have no lessons to offer Canada on drug control.