NEW PROGRAM AIMED AT CURBING DRUG TRADE

8 opt for job help over prosecution: New program aimed at curbing drug
trade

Eight suspects caught up in the North Charleston drug trade have
signed up for a second-chance program in which they will be steered
toward job training in lieu of being prosecuted.

As long as they stay clean, the drug charges they potentially face
won't be pursued, a key provision of an experimental reform program
launched this month.

The men, all between ages 18 and 30, were snared as part of a
six-month undercover investigation of the crack cocaine trade around
the drug-plagued Charleston Farms neighborhood.

The group members were considered lower-tier players in the street
corner drug trade with minimal criminal records, as opposed to the
approximately two dozen other more hardened dealers who were arrested
on federal and state charges of distributing cocaine base.

North Charleston Police Sgt. Brian Adams said the eight voluntarily
agreed to take part in the pilot program.

They will be required to meet with a mentor from two local church
groups and pursue job training that includes such fields as
construction or installing insulation.

At present, the eight have "little or no criminal history at all,"
Adams said.

Failing to complete the requirements or getting back in the drug trade
means the charges hanging against them will be pursued. Those are now
on hold.

Another of the requirements is that they also come back to the
community for in-person updates, detailing their progress in moving
away from the drug trade.

Because the eight have not been formally charged, their identities
were not released by authorities.

Federal, state and local law enforcement officials announced the
initiative Jan. 20. The U.S. Attorney's Office is calling its end of
the program "Drug Market Intervention," while North Charleston has
adopted the moniker "Stop and Take A New Direction," or STAND.

In August, U.S. Attorney Bill Nettles approached North Charleston
Police Chief Jon Zumalt about bringing the program here from a similar
program in North Carolina.

They chose Charleston Farms -- mostly south of Remount Road near
Interstate 26 -- because, they said, it is a distressed area but one
with a solid base of home ownership and community involvement.