RAVE REVIEWS FOR SAFER STREETS

It's a massive undertaking and maybe the most ambitious specific
anticrime initiative of any American city -- with a mandate to shut
down open-air drug markets in a city full of open-air drug markets.
But the mission of Operation Safe Streets, according to the
Philadelphia Police Department's website, goes even further, using the
Operation's enormous multi-year $75 million budget to improve quality
of life in city neighborhoods devastated by drugs and to drive the
dope peddlers inside, where they'll presumably be easier to track and
eventually arrest.

Operation Safe Streets, the brainchild and shining achievement of
incumbent Mayor John Street, has officially been in effect for 18
months. Since May 2002, police officers have been manning known drug
corners, and since last September, additional cops are patrolling the
same areas on bicycles.

The plan has come under fire for the amount of money it has cost in
police overtime, but city officials say the positive outcome far
outweighs the cost.

Chief Inspector William Blackburn, who runs the Police Department's
Narcotics Bureau, can't say enough good things about Operation Safe
Streets.

"From May 1, 2002 to Sept. 30, 2003, we've seized $7.2 million in cash
and $118,000 worth of illegal narcotics," crows Blackburn. "And that's
just the numbers from the Narcotics Bureau. Think about the other
crimes like burglary and domestic violence that may have some roots in
the drug problem, and you'll see that it's not just the drug dealers
and buyers that are affected."

Blackburn is quick to point out that the narcotics arrests are more
intelligently targeted as well.

"It's fine to arrest buyers, but that doesn't really address the
problem," he says. "It's a supply-and-demand business and you have to
aggressively target the suppliers. Even with the tremendous increase
in arrests since the program began, our arrests of drug dealers are up
around 7 percent, and the arrests of buyers is down 12 percent. We're
going after the sellers, and it's working. Our people tell us that
it's more difficult to buy drugs on the streets of Philadelphia than
ever before."

More important than arrests and drug seizures, says Blackburn, are the
numbers of illegal guns taken off city streets. According to
Blackburn's statistics, gun seizures are up 82 percent, with 1,302
illegal guns seized during the past year and a half compared to 790
guns during the previous 18-month period.

"We're going to return control of the neighborhoods back to the
neighbors," Blackburn says, echoing the administration's Safe Streets
mantra.

As proud as the Street administration is about Safe Streets'
accomplishments to date, they say the operation is not yet finished.

"Operation Safe Streets was always conceived as a multilayered,
multifaceted initiative," says mayoral spokesperson Luz Cardenas.
"Police and public-safety officials meet frequently with the mayor to
discuss the operation, and make necessary changes. There are always
adjustments to the plan."

The plan, according to Cardenas, was to first identify and shut down
300 open-air drug corners. Once that was accomplished, phase two went
into effect which, last September, put police on bike patrol in
troubled neighborhoods. The logic being that once the bad guys
realized standing on the corner was a bad idea, they'd become more
mobile; and the cops had to become more mobile with them. Bicycles can
cut down narrow side streets and alleys where cars can't go, Cardenas
explains, giving the cops at least even footing with druggies on bikes
and scooters and carrying cell phones.

Currently underway is phase three, which involves busting the dealers
inside homes, where presumably they've been driven. The advantage, of
course, is that the bulk of the drugs and cash are there, as opposed
to the relatively small amounts carried by the dealer while standing
on a corner. That phase is going gangbusters too, says Blackburn, who
cites a 37 percent increase in search warrants executed for dealers
inside their alleged drug houses.

For the record, mayoral challenger Sam Katz has both praised and
criticized Operation Safe Streets, but says most aspects of the plan
are worth keeping. "Sam is committed to keeping the parts of Operation
Safe Streets that work and fixing the parts that don't," says Katz
spokesperson Nathan Raab. "It needs to be a coordinated, citywide
effort with sustainable solutions. What happens when the money runs
out sooner than expected? There needs to be more long-term thinking,
and that's what Sam is doing."

Raab says that a Mayor Katz would create a new cabinet position,
Deputy Mayor for Public Safety, whose job it will be to coordinate the
efforts of the police, prosecutors, courts and jails and make Safe
Streets a permanent treatment, not just an expensive bandage.

For all the good, it's an expensive undertaking. According to
Cardenas, the program easily sucked up its $12 million budget for
fiscal year 2002, and the $38 million earmarked for Safe Streets in
2003. Next year, she says, the mayor has slated $25 million for Safe
Streets, and they expect to spend it all. The investment, say both
Blackburn and Cardenas, is worth every last dime.

"By creating a partnership between the community and the police, and
by including the clergy and neighborhood organizations, the mayor has
given everyone a stake in the quality of life in their communities,"
says Cardenas. "They're involved, they're working together and the
plan is working. Despair and frustration are replaced with hope and
determination, and you can't put a price tag on that."