Essay on the Fight Against America's Drug Problem: The Role of Villages & Police

Introduction

Since the 1960s, America has been experiencing a drug problem. As much as drugs were present before, it was in the 1960s when it became the society's concern after attracting public attention (Kappeler, & Gaines, 2015). Drugs remain a problem that concerns many communities, and may people see it as a crime stimulant. The villages, together with the police service department, has always been in the forefront to fight against this drug. Many campaigns and departments, including the DARE program, have emerged as a response to providing a mechanism in fighting drug abuse and drug trafficking. This article assesses the community policing and drugs using four elements. First is the perspective of the war of drugs as cloaked imagery and its impact. Second, is the effect of drug strategy on kingpins in response to illicit drug supply and price and their organization? Third, is the DARE program and finally an opinion between community problem-solving versus individual incidence solving.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

The war on drugs is cloaked in imagery and its impact

The term "the war on drugs is cloaked in imagery" simply means that good people in the community are being corrupted or harmed by evil people (Kappeler, & Gaines, 2015). It shows the existence of a sense of goodness versus badness in the community. The drug war is deeply rooted in community morals, which causes the population to condemn a good brush. Fear, concerns, and community reactions towards drugs lead to continuous levels of covert and also racism overt. Politicians take the problem of drugs to the extent of disenfranchising the poor and minority groups in the community. The moral drug war can then be defined as the wedge created between the poor and other community classes as a result of substantial drug enforcement practices. The ethical drug war has brought in the policing service as a result of crimes caused by drug addicts. The policing community is trying to develop and dictate programs to find solutions to the disadvantaged in the city. Community policing outlines that all law enforcement drugs should be abandoned in order to adopt new solutions. In these practices, drug dealers and centers are targeted as a measure of solving the problem.

The imagery war on drugs has a negative impact on minorities and the poor. The tactics of abandoning low enforcement and introducing new practices that will involve the conjunction of police with other people will result in crime and drug abuse (Kappeler, & Gaines, 2015). The policies should utilize a public health approach with primary concern to the community as a whole but not focusing on the selected dominant group. In terms of implementing new strategies, every member of the city should understand it fully. As much as everyone is aware of the drug problem, most people misgive about it; only a few try to internalize and understand it. The nature and extent of the drug problem in the community are best understood using a problem-solving perspective; this means that awareness and campaigns should be carried out in the community showing them how adversely drugs have resulted in crimes, poor quality of life, and disorder. As much as prevention and drug education make important police objectives, the police should also focus more on neighborhood and areas which constitute an identifiable or visible problem. The policing community should finally concentrate on inclusive problem solving that effect the community life.

Effect of drug strategy on kingpins

The elimination of drug kingpins as a strategy of dug control will result in the whole network of drug trafficking rendered useless, thus resulting in a large gap of drug supply to their organizations. If drug networks are rendered inoperable, then their amount in the streets will automatically drop down, shooting their prices as a result of unavailability or little available on the roads. The arrest of drug dealers has experienced long term history. In 1979s, when cocaine become a problem, American law enforcement incorporates the Columbian police and prosecutors in operation to arrest Columbian drug leaders Kappeler & Gaines, 2015). Today, the United States of America is working closely with Mexico in an attempt to capture drug dealers. The adverse impact of high-level enforcement is that the top-level dealers of arrested by the police may come out being the weakest, making the enforcement to be tough to the remaining drug dealers. A high-level implementation may also assume the occurrence of void when the head of the drug dealer organization is arrested. However, various organizations choose individuals or other organizations to take the position of their leader and quickly fill any form of void in the market territory.

During the arrest of Medillan drug cartels by the American and Columbian officials, Medillan operations were quickly taken over by Cali dealers Kappeler & Gaines, 2015). When American drug leaders are arrested, their organizations are frequently taken over by other drug trafficking organizations or lieutenants. High-level enforcement has little impact on the price of drugs and their availability in the streets. By doing their best, high law enforcement tries to keep drug smugglers from being over blatant and tries to discourage more people from involving drug smuggling. Significant seizures of drugs operate as public relations service; the open see police actions as victory to drug war even if they are effectively meaningless in drug supply. The actual war on drug trafficking remains at the retail level. Kleiman, in his study of 2003, noted that the primary objective of any policing strategy is to create a substantial impact of associated drug trafficking and to reduce violence. Arresting high-level dealers of drug trafficking is likely to increase triggering risks of abuse as a result of lieutenants and other organizations battling for the vacated territories. Such enforcement that results in violence tends to undermine the effort of police and create a public hysteria which is counterproductive in the society.

DARE programs

DARE programs were established in 1983 as a partnership between the police department of Los Angeles and the L.A. public schools (Flynn et al., 2015). The idea was for the police officers to go to school and talk with kids in order to boost self-esteem among the students so that to resist drug temptations. The program attracted public attention making politician dedicate their support over it. President Ronald Reagan in 1988 proclaimed the first DARE national day, and the tradition continued even up to the reign of Obama. Eventually, the DARE program totaled 75% of the nation's school districts, making its budget to boost into eight-figure, with much of the money coming from the government and others from individual state affiliations.

With success scrutiny of the DARE program, public health researchers started looking evidence of meeting its objective of reducing drug usage among teenagers. The first study, which was published in the early 1990s, did not find anything. In 1991, the University of Illinois at Chicago stated that the effectiveness of DARE in altering drug use behavior among the students was not yet established. In 1994, the Triangle Institute research funded in part by the Justice Department conducted a meta-analysis on DARE and concluded that DARE had little to impact on the rate of drug use among teenagers. DARE's limited influence on teenage drug use behavior contrasts the prevalence and its popularity program. The authors of DARE noted that it was a necessary implication for DARE to take the place of others, and more beneficial drug use curricula that the teens will receive.

The Justice Department refused to publish their study, stating that their findings were unexpected. DARE's chief executive at that time said that RTI study findings were like that of Kicking Santa Claus to them because they were pure, but at that time, Kicking had just begun (Flynn et al., 2015). More studies showed similar findings; one study suggested that DARE students were more likely to experiment with alcohol and drugs. By 2003, the former General Accounting Officer launched its own DARE study to find out if the Justice Department was getting a decent return from its investment to DARE. The conclusion of the study found out that no essential differences in illicit drug use among students who receive DARE and those who do not accept DARE. There is no doubt that DARE is currently making an effort to adopt more initiative on an evidence-based approach than in previous years.

Community problem-solving approach

I support the statement that community problem-solving will be more effective than responding to individual incidents. By using community policing, which is the essence of a collaboration between the community and police, all community problems resulting from drug crimes will be solved (Boettke et al., 2016). With the police no longer sole enforcement of law and order, all members of the community become active participants in enhancing safety and maintaining the quality of neighborhoods. The expanded outlook of crime prevention and control, derive a new emphasis for community members to actively participate in problem-solving. The neighborhood patrol officer to be backed by the police service organization, to help members of the community in mobilizing the support of problem-solving and quality life enhancement. The community members to contribute in advice, voice their concern as well as take action in addressing these concerns.

Reinvigorating communities is essential when crimes are detected, and a more vital neighborhood is created. Trust is the core value that underlies and link the components of community partnership in problem-solving (Boettke et al., 2016). A foundation of trust will make the police to create a close relationship with the community purposefully to achieve problem-solving. Without trust between the citizens and the police, enhancing a desirable social community free of crimes is impossible. The community should also start by assessing one another in the response of problem-solving; one should have a prior concern of his or her neighbor. Controlling and eliminating evil social groups in the community through public prosecutions will deny other emerging evil groups the power to involve in crime because there will be total injustice monitoring from the whole community.

Conclusion

Community policing has always strived to eliminate drug trafficking practices. Challenges to end these practices have been hindered the communities from creating an ultimate social society. Good people have been used by bad people in trafficking drugs; this makes it difficult for the policing community to comply with shut down supply of drugs in the streets. Strategies have also been laid down to make sure that drug trafficking does not exist through enacting high-level enforcement such as arresting the drug leaders. Although high-level implementation has tried to control drug dealers, it has been a challenge of managing the lieutenants and other organizations that emerges up once a drug dealer is arrested.

References

Boettke, P. J., Lemke, J. S., & Palagashvili, L. (2016). Re-evaluating community policing in a polycentric system. Journal of Institutional Economics, 12(2), 305-325.

Flynn, A. B., Falco, M., & Hocini, S. (2015). Independent evaluation of middle school-based drug prevention curricula: a systematic review. JAMA pediatrics, 169(11), 1046-1052.

Kappeler, V. E., & Gaines, L. K. (2015). Community policing. Taylor & Francis.