 |  | |
 |
|  |
 |  | |
| | |
|
| |
| | |
|
|
|
|
Federal and state governments spend billions of dollars annually to thwart the
manufacture and importation of narcotics destined for residents of the United States. In
September 2003, the United Nations Drug Control Program estimated that invigorated,
American-financed aerial eradication efforts had reduced the size of Colombia’s coca
crop by 32 percent in the first seven months of the year. Meanwhile, seizures of narcotics
at points of entry have increased. The Bureau of Immigration and Customs
Enforcement’s Martin Ficke listed at the public hearing some of the seizures at New
Jersey air and sea port-of-entry facilities:
In the last three years … over 45,000 pounds of narcotics have been seized, consisting of over 600 pounds of heroin, over 6,800 pounds of cocaine, over 1,500 pounds of Ecstasy, over 400 pounds of marijuana and over 36,000 pounds of khat. Heroin and Ecstasy are two drugs that are being seized at Department of Homeland Security facilities in New Jersey in ever increasing amounts. Between 1999 and 2002, heroin seizures increased by 171 percent and Ecstasy seizures by 290 percent. And the numbers for 2002 reflect over 293 pounds of heroin seized and over 900,000 tablets of Ecstasy. Mr. Ficke attributed the swelling seizures to a combination of better law enforcement mechanisms and an increase in the flow of narcotics. Seizures of the proceeds of drug trafficking also continue unabated. Mr. Ficke reported that in 2002 his office “seized in excess of $30 million in narcotics proceeds pursuant to investigations being conducted by the federal, state and local money laundering task force located in Newark.” He noted that this was a 150 percent increase over the previous year. He testified that 14 state and local law enforcement officers, representing five northern New Jersey counties and the Division of Criminal Justice (DCJ), are assigned to the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Newark money laundering task force. Mr. Ficke added that his office and the DCJ recently launched a project focusing on money remitters, both licensed and unlicensed. The DEA’s Alexander Gourley testified that 96 special agents, 53 task force officers, 11 DEA intelligence analysts, 25 diversion investigators, and more than 60 administrative, clerical, professional, contract and military personnel work out of offices in Newark, Atlantic City, Camden and Paterson. He stated, “In the last 10 years, over 178 kilograms of heroin, 8,400 kilograms of cocaine, 741 kilograms of marijuana and nearly 602,000 MDMA pills have been seized by the DEA in [New Jersey].” Mr. Gourley testified that “no central repository [tracks] how much” the DEA spends to interdict drug trafficking. He added, “But in the last ten years, DEA’s overall budget has increased over a hundred percent. It was $921 million in 1993. It’s now nearly $1.9 billion.” Funding allotted to Newark Division operations pays overtime for “a large contingent of task force officers,” according to Mr. Gourley. A Mobile Enforcement Team (MET), available to assist local police chiefs with violent drug trafficking organizations, is funded separately by DEA’s Washington office. Mr. Gourley said the Newark Division tries “to do at least a couple of” MET deployments per year. He added, “The cost of wiretaps and interpreters and telephone companies’ expenses is phenomenal.” He noted that the DEA often must rely on outside contractors for interpreters that can cost $30,000 for a 30-day wiretap, and up to $60,000 “if they have to come in from another state … .” In addition, northern New Jersey is a High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) with an annual budget of about $1.7 million, according to Mr. Gourley. Several witnesses at the public hearing described determined efforts by law enforcement to thwart street-level drug trafficking. Attorney General Harvey testified that he transformed the Division of Criminal Justice’s Statewide Narcotics Task Force, composed of attorneys, investigators and State Police troopers, into a Gangs, Drugs and Guns initiative operating in seven major urban centers: Jersey City, the Newark area, Paterson, Elizabeth, Trenton, Atlantic City and Camden. Working closely with the State Police Street Gang Unit, this initiative scored a significant success against the Latin Kings gang, with 16 indictments last fall against 47 known members operating in Ocean County and elsewhere. According to Attorney General Harvey, the Gangs, Drugs and Guns initiative has developed partnerships with county narcotics task forces, as well as with the federal Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Meanwhile, High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) task forces operate in both southern and northern New Jersey. The Union County Prosecutor’s “Save A Neighborhood” program involves officers from various Union County police departments in community-oriented policing aimed at deterring youths from gangs and drugs. In Newark, traffic has been rerouted in an attempt to discourage quick and convenient narcotics purchases by out-of-towners taking advantage of ready highway access to Newark’s open-air drug markets. The federally funded Weed and Seed program continues in several cities. It combines aggressive law enforcement to weed out drug traffickers with a seeding of social programs in targeted inner-city neighborhoods. Intelligence sharing among law enforcement agencies has improved. State Police Superintendent Joseph Fuentes pointed out at the public hearing that a Statewide Intelligence Database, called SIMS, would soon become fully operational. It will enable law enforcers at all levels to share information about drug traffickers, including street gang members. Criminal Justice Director Vaughn McKoy described how such intelligence sharing, involving federal counterparts and assisted by high technology, would work: … [I]f an alleged gang member is arrested down in Burlington County, and there’s some information or intelligence to suggest that some members of his group were up in, let’s say, Bergen County, and that they were arrested at a point in time in the past, we’ll be able to link people together to see what the patterns are, what the targets are, who the players are, and we’ll have the computer capability to do some mapping and other things that will help us identify who are the players, where are the hot targets, who are they aligned with, are they aligned with members from the same groups or do they have alliances with members of other groups, and different things like that. Newark FBI Special-Agent-in-Charge Louie Allen testified he believes law enforcement has not been left behind by drug-trafficking gangs that use technology – the Internet, pagers, cell phones and the like – to advance their criminal operations. He maintained that the current generation of investigators receives the latest technology and training necessary to address technological advances by the criminals “in a 21st-Century manner.” Countering the cost and effort of law enforcement is the profit-generating deviousness of the drug traffickers. Changing Internet accounts, tossing cell phones and other precautionary measures, while time-consuming and expensive, can thwart law enforcement’s best efforts and enable patient and careful drug dealers to conduct business successfully for long periods of time. Because of drug traffickers’ unlimited resources, law enforcement often follows one step behind the more sophisticated criminal groups. The fact that many traffickers give law enforcement the edge by dressing in identifiable attire, wearing distinctive identifying tattoos or exchanging money and drugs simultaneously out in the open reveals a disdain for law enforcement as an effective deterrent in too many places. As law enforcement increases its proficiency and presence, some of these traffickers fail to change and, thus, wind up incarcerated. Some operate with cunning, invest in methods of foiling law enforcement, and remain in business considerably longer. Some continue to slip through the cracks even without sophistication, relying on dumb luck and the limited capability of law enforcement to mount sophisticated control operations in more than a few locales. The lucky ones advance and the careful ones obtain obscene quantities of money and remain in business long enough to satisfy the insatiable users. FBI Supervisory Special Agent Nolan said members of his agency have a passionate desire to curtail the menace of neighborhood drug trafficking but are pulled in “many different directions,” particularly after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The FBI has a Safe Streets Task Force, which provides overtime funding for local police participants. Mr. Nolan indicated that local and federal authorities can work together successfully to free some neighborhoods from the paralyzing presence of drug dealers, but a lack of traditional interdiction resources limits what can be accomplished. He added, “[I]f you don’t seed [a neighborhood] with the good [after arresting occupying drug traffickers], what’s going to happen is those people are going to come back into that neighborhood and take over.” He concluded: We wish we could, … we want to get [the neighborhoods] back. We want to make them safe for people to come out and sit on their front porches and talk to their neighbors once again, … [but] no one wants to sit out there when we’ve got [devastating] weapons on the street. I don't want to sit out there. And we can't get there fast enough. We can’t get to them on the street. Everybody is stripped of resources. There are not enough police to go around for every corner, but we do what we can. Data relating to drug overdose deaths spotlight the intractability of our present course. The Office of the Medical Examiner for New Jersey reported 846 drug-related deaths in the state in 2000, 883 in 2001 and 870 in 2002. For several years, such deaths – more than the number attributable to vehicle accidents – have continued at a more or less steady level, showing no significant upward or downward trends. * * * Despite the commendable intentions underlying them, however, all of law enforcement’s stouthearted interdiction efforts amount to a gallant but unfulfilled remedy. Decades spent in an expensive quest to curtail supplies have not prevented those who want illegal drugs in New Jersey from obtaining them, with little inconvenience and at a cost more or less within their means. That is why it is vital to look beyond mere interdiction for viable strategies to combat this multi-dimensional problem. The expansion of so-called “drug courts” in New Jersey over the past few years serves as tentative acknowledgement that traditional methods of countering drug trafficking are not likely to lead to durable or adequate solutions. Geared toward first time substance abuse offenders charged with non-violent offenses, the drug courts, now operating in 16 counties, divert defendants from more expensive jail cells to intensive supervision, treatment and drug-testing programs likely to channel them into productive lives. According to the Department of Corrections, more than 42 percent of New Jersey’s prison inmates report an extreme problem with drugs. They, and others like them on probation, parole or the brink of entry into the criminal justice system, constitute the lion’s share of those fueling the demand for narcotics. While drug courts and similar programs are hardly a panacea, initial data indicate that, properly funded and fine-tuned, they can remove society from the treadmill leading to more and more expensive incarceration and continuing high addiction and use levels. Meanwhile, the futility of relying on interdicting supply as the chief method for halting drug trafficking should no longer be doubted. First, there are too many ways to produce illegal drugs in too many places. While aerial spraying has reduced coca production in the heartland of southern Colombia, coca cultivation, fueled by continuing demand and the failure of alternative crops, has rebounded in other regions and along Colombia’s isolated borders. The impoverished farmer needs to feed his family. Over several decades, we have not succeeded in eliminating even a single illegal drug from the marketplace. Rather, commerce in specific narcotics waxes and wanes primarily as dictated by drug-of-choice preferences. Second, U.S. borders being so long, and the methods of transport and points of entry so numerous, short of building a China-style wall, it is too difficult to successfully prevent narcotics from crossing into the country and eventually arriving in our communities. This is especially so now, when expensive and substantial intelligence, technological and enforcement resources must be devoted to the urgent and necessary war against terrorism. Third, if we realistically compiled the total cost, we would have to conclude that we could never afford a comprehensively successful crackdown on and incapacitation of all of the wholesale and street-level suppliers in New Jersey or elsewhere. Citing figures from the New Jersey Department of Corrections as of June 2002, the Washington-based Drug Policy Alliance reported in November 2003 that 36 percent of New Jersey’s 28,000 prison inmates are serving sentences for non-violent drug offenses – the highest proportion in the nation and far in excess of the national average of 20 percent. The lowest rate was Vermont, at one percent. Assuming we would not tolerate incarcerating people under inhumane conditions, it would cost too much to build and operate the prisons necessary to house all the drug sellers – and those willing to replace them. The cost obviously would be prohibitive if we had to imprison, under our mandatory sentencing laws, all those whom we would need to catch in order to solve the problem via the interdiction method. Meanwhile, those not kept in prison with stern sentences too often offend again after winding up without aftercare and back on the streets – unemployed, untreated for addiction and unrepentant. In fact, the cost of simply arresting and prosecuting the recidivists, as well as the offenders who have never been arrested but operate with seeming impunity, would be prohibitive by itself, before adding the cost of more incarceration. The DEA’s Alexander Gourley described at the public hearing the effects of many successful federal, state and local projects, which have ruined the criminal careers of numerous drug traffickers, seized many of their assets, and freed certain neighborhoods from their grip. He reminded the public, however, that demand reduction is society’s best chance to spur comprehensive, lasting reductions in trafficking: Now, I think we all need to do stuff with people. And we’ve partnered up with the medical professionals, educators, student counselors in school to get the message out, just exactly what’s happening out there. Parent groups, we’re constantly going up and down the state providing information to them. And we have found that with the media blitz on certain drugs, that we see a reduction in certain areas occurring, which is a positive thing for us. And we would like to continue to do that. State Police Sergeant Bevacqui sounded a similar note: I think what we have to focus our attention on is not so much law enforcement's activities on stopping this scourge, but it's the intervention and prevention programs that we have to instill to start educating the kids in schools on gang awareness and recognition. We have no standardized programs in the State of New Jersey for that. No one is immune to this gang activity in the State of New Jersey, no one is. It affects every community around the state. We need to get to our children because they supply … the future gang members. … We need to put our resources to our youth. It follows, and is irrefutably bolstered by history and common sense, that society should emphasize curtailing demand as the best partner to interdiction for the control of drug trafficking. Redoubling of efforts to arrest replaceable traffickers would only lead to cost-prohibitive incarceration of unmanageable numbers of individuals with little, if any, corresponding reduction of overall addiction, usage and trafficking levels. Putting similar considerable resources into universal demand reduction programs and aftercare programs for the incarcerated and the addicted would diminish the number of addicts and users and offer a much greater likelihood of reducing trafficking. We have experienced the results in isolated pockets where substantial ancillary benefits have occurred, such as increased worker productivity, maintenance of family unity and reduction of child abuse. It is not Pollyanna-ish to strive for a drug free community, but it is naïve to believe that the “war” against drugs can be won through defoliation and incarceration. Drug demand reduction, as with the blitz against tobacco demand, can be addressed successfully if our financial and political will to reclaim our streets and our children’s future is sincere and resolute. Accountability for criminal acts requires incarceration as a deterrent, but the real test of our country’s dedication to our principles is to find the cure for future addiction through our vast educational and promotional resources and to be willing to mentor the addicted and the vulnerable. Parents may be the “anti-drug” when they are around, but realistically, the target population is rarely blessed with a solid nuclear family unit. Thus, society must embrace the challenge to promote an anti-drug lifestyle for the good of its citizens.
 $25 – Lock Included – Free Shipping in the USA Payment by PayPal – E-mail bikelock@geltbyassociation.com
 the people of New York City remain safe from that gang of marauding political reprobates – Sandra Roper, John O'Hara, and Judge John Phillips.
 Political corruption is a tradition here. First issue in a series by Anthony Olszewski – Click HERE to find out more.
|
|
|
|
 Your Ancestors' Story |
 Bruce Springsteen's Jersey Shore Rock Haven! |
|
GET NJ |
