Drug Market Intervention

An Implementation Guide
Drug Market
Intervention
An Implementation Guide
This project was supported by cooperative agreement number 2010-CK-WX-K006 awarded by the
Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, U.S. Department of Justice. The opinions contained
herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies
of the U.S. Department of Justice. References to specific agencies, companies, products, or services
should not be considered an endorsement by the author(s) or the U.S. Department of Justice. Rather,
the references are illustrations to supplement discussion of the issues.
The Internet references cited in this publication were valid as of the date of this publication. Given
that URLs and websites are in constant flux, neither the author(s) nor the COPS Office can vouch for
their current validity.
This guide was created by the National Network for Safe Communities (www.nnscommunities.org).
Recommended citation:
National Network for Safe Communities. 2015. Drug Market Intervention: An Implementation Guide.
Washington, DC: Office of Community Oriented Policing Services.
ISBN: 978-1-935676-56-0
Published 2015
Contents
Letter from the COPS Office . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v
Letter from the National Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
About This Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
The problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
The logic of the strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Process, timeline, and partnership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Phase 1: DMI Working Group Formation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Choose potential Working Group members . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Address questions and misconceptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Phase 2: Police-Community Reconciliation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Why it matters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Getting started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Identifying community partners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Holding meetings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
The reconciliation process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Preparation work for law enforcement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Preparation work for communities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Methods of racial reconciliation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Responses to community misperceptions of law enforcement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
The way forward . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Elevating community standards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Phase 3: Identification and Preparation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Identify and select a drug market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Identify all dealers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Prepare cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Choose cases to bring and cases to bank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Cases to bring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Cases to bank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Identify influentials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Prepare social service structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Develop communications strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

iii
Drug Market Intervention: An Implementation Guide

Phase 4: Call-In Preparation and Execution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Preparing the call-in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Select community speakers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Select law enforcement speakers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Select a social service speaker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Establish call-in location . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Deliver invitations to dealers and influentials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Executing the call-in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Use appropriate staging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Call-in rehearsal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Convey law enforcement message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Convey the community moral voice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Convey the social service message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Phase 5: Follow-Through and Maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Carry out law enforcement promises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Follow up on social services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Keep the market closed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Police-community communication and trust . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Police responses and innovations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Role of community stakeholders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Help dealers change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Assess outcomes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Appendixes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
A. Drug Market Intervention flow chart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
B. Sample letter to community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
C. Sample letter to dealers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
D. Sample invitation to community meeting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
E. Sample agenda for call-in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Memphis Drug Market Intervention Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
F. Sample press release . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
About the National Network for Safe Communities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
About the COPS Office . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

iv
Letter from the COPS Office
Dear colleagues,
There is no doubt that overt drug markets destroy neighborhoods, contribute to
crime, and have a multitude of other negative effects on communities. When I was the
chief of police in East Palo Alto, California, arrest and imprisonment of drug dealers
alone would not eliminated the problem of overt drug markets. The greatest deterrent
to crime and violence is not a community saturated with cops; it is a neighborhood
alive with engaged and empowered residents. A community will not feel safe until its
residents regain control and ownership of their neighborhood.
My approach to closing East Palto Alto’s drug markets was built on the successful
efforts of places like High Point, North Carolina, where the police department and
community embraced a new strategy that helped them to successfully eliminate all of
their overt drug markets. What became known as the “High Point Model” has since
been rolled out successfully as the Drug Market Intervention (DMI) strategy in many
jurisdictions around the country and continues to be advanced under the umbrella of
the National Network for Safe Communities.
Whoever controls a neighborhood’s public spaces controls the quality of life in that
neighborhood, and that control must rest with the residents. To help achieve this goal,
this guide provides the basic information needed by law enforcement, community
members, and social service partners to prepare and successfully execute the DMI
strategy so they can reclaim their neighborhoods and build safer communities.
I thank the tireless efforts of David Kennedy and the many individuals that make up
the National Network of Safe Communities. Together, they have dramatically reduced
violence through the National Network’s two core crime reduction strategies: the
Group Violence Intervention and the Drug Market Intervention. This publication
is part of an ongoing series by the National Network to share and refine the
implementation of both GVI and DMI.
We hope you find this series helpful in your efforts to reclaim your community.
Sincerely,

Ronald L. Davis, Director

Office of Community Oriented Policing Services

v
Letter from the National Network
Dear colleagues,
Neighborhoods dealing with overt drug markets are frequently afflicted by several
serious ills. They are subject to the violence, disorder, loss of public space, and intrusion
of outsiders that comes with the drug market itself. They are often the target of heavy,
undifferentiated law enforcement attention that treats dealers and ordinary citizens in
much the same way. They suffer from the many direct and collateral consequences of high
levels of arrest, incarceration, and court supervision. Traditional law enforcement does not
eliminate the drug market or make the community safe. And as this guide emphasizes,
history and the present moment alike can support toxic misunderstandings about what’s
happening: on the community side that all this is deliberate, and on the police side that
the community actually likes it and wants it to continue.
People in law enforcement, the community, social services, and academia designed the
original West End operation in High Point, North Carolina. They knew that community
and police views of one another were not correct. Nobody wants to live like this—not
even many dealers. The community does not like what is happening. The police badly
want to do better. Most dealers want to do better. It turned out to be possible to address
these conflicting narratives, find common ground, and engage with dealers in a way that
got their attention and changed their behavior. It also turned out, in practice, to be a great
deal easier than anybody imagined. The results are extraordinary. Not only does crime go
down—something the numbers can capture—but citizens also get their neighborhoods
back, families get their yards and parks back, communities find their voice, and toxic
relationships between neighborhoods and police are reset. The Drug Market Intervention
(DMI) works for everybody because everybody moves and changes together.
DMI does not fix everything. It may help with, but certainly does not fix, the drug
problem and all its associated family, community, and public health consequences.
It does not help with the deeper issues a neighborhood will almost certainly be
facing—economic, educational, and beyond. All of these areas need more work. But
neighborhoods all over the country have been suffering, many for some 30 years
now, with a special and grievous set of harms that come with out-of-control public

vii
Drug Market Intervention: An Implementation Guide

drug dealing. We know now that they don’t have to. And DMI is showing the way
to a fundamentally new direction for promoting public safety, particularly in its
demonstration that deeply rooted and deeply felt conflicts between communities and
police can be not only faced but also addressed and reversed.
Sincerely,

David Kennedy
National Network for Safe Communities

viii
About This Series
The National Network for Safe Communities has assembled guides to support
communities implementing two crime control strategies: the Group Violence
Intervention (GVI) and the Drug Market Intervention (DMI). GVI reduces violent
crime when community members join together with law enforcement and social service
providers to deliver an anti-violence message to highly active street groups. DMI
eliminates overt drug markets by bringing together
community leaders, law enforcement, and service The particulars of the strategies are
providers with street-level dealers and their families adaptable. The National Network
to make it clear that the dealing must stop, that law recommends that practitioners use these
enforcement will behave differently, and that there is guides to ensure that all the elements are in
help for those who want it. place, tailoring their execution to the local
Both strategies combine the best of law enforcement resources and personnel available.
and community-driven approaches to improve
public safety, minimize arrests and incarceration,
and foster police-community reconciliation. The purpose of these guides is to offer
comprehensive tools to practitioners—whether they are community members, law
enforcement, social service providers, or government officials—who seek to bring the
strategies to their communities, build a partnership of stakeholders, operationalize the
strategies, and sustain their results.
Each guide lays out the important elements of a strategy and recommends a general
path along which communities should proceed. However, the particulars of the
strategies are adaptable. The National Network recommends that practitioners use
these guides to ensure that all the elements are in place, tailoring their execution
to the local resources and personnel available. If communities stay close to the spirit
of these approaches and remain faithful to the fundamental principles, they will see
substantial improvements.

ix
Acknowledgments
The National Network for Safe Communities would like to thank the following for
contributing their time, knowledge, and insight to this document:
• Gretta Bush, President, High Point Community Against Violence
• K. Edward Copeland, Reverend, New Zion Missionary Baptist Church
• James Fealy, former Chief of Police, High Point (North Carolina) Police Department
• Daniel Gannon, Lieutenant, Providence (Rhode Island) Police Department
• Richard Janikowski, Associate Professor, Department of Criminology and Criminal
Justice, University of Memphis
• Sherman Mason, Pastor, New Bethel Baptist Church
• Edmund McGarrell, Director, School of Criminal Justice, Michigan State University
• Tracey Meares, Walton Hale Hamilton Professor of Law, Yale Law School
• Risco Mention-Lewis, Deputy Police Commissioner, Suffolk County (New York)
Police Department
• Meg Reiss, former Assistant District Attorney, Nassau County, New York
• Kristen Rosselli, former Community Services Director, City of Raleigh, North
Carolina
• Jim Summey, Executive Director, High Point Community Against Violence
• Marty Sumner, Chief of Police, High Point (North Carolina) Police Department
Special thanks go to Katherine McQuay, senior policy advisor, and Vonda Matthews,
policy analyst, of the Office for Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office)
for their support of and advocacy for this project. The National Network also extends
its deep gratitude to Zoe Mentel, former policy analyst of the COPS Office.
Thanks also to current and former staff at the National Network for Safe Communities
at the Center for Crime Prevention and Control, John Jay College of Criminal Justice,
New York, New York: Vaughn Crandall, Amy Crawford, Sue-Lin Wong, Sibylle von
Ulmenstein, Louisa Aviles, and Michael Friedrich.
With permission, this guide substantially draws on writings by David M. Kennedy,
chair of the National Network for Safe Communities.
The National Network also thanks Peter Ohlhausen, president of Ohlhausen
Research Inc.

xi
Photo: National Network for Safe Communities
Introduction
The Drug Market Intervention (DMI) strategy is an effective approach for
shutting down overt drug markets and improving life for residents of the surrounding
communities. Overt drug markets are those that operate in public, whether inside
or outside, and in which noncommunity members can come and buy drugs
without knowing anybody; they are chaotic, violent, and do enormous damage
to the community.
First employed in 2004 in High Point, North Carolina, DMI identifies particular drug
markets; identifies street-level dealers; arrests violent offenders; suspends cases for
nonviolent dealers; and brings together drug dealers, their families, law enforcement
officials, service providers, and community leaders for a meeting that makes clear that
selling drugs openly must stop. The strategy also includes a critical process of truth
telling and reconciliation to address historic conflict between law enforcement and
communities of color.

Extraordinary Results
It does not produce the community harms that our traditional street-sweeping, unfocused
efforts of the past have. The most important benefit of this work by the people of High
Point is the reconciliation that emerges from the dialog between the minority community
and the police. In a 30-year law enforcement career, I have never seen an effort like this.
– James Fealy, former Chief of Police, High Point (North Carolina) Police Department

The first step involves law enforcement, community members, and social service
providers forming a partnership to carry out DMI. Under the strategy, the police
identify a particular drug market, arrest violent dealers, and notify nonviolent dealers
to attend a call-in, a meeting in which they come face-to-face with law enforcement
officers, social service providers, community figures, ex-offenders, and “influentials”—
parents, relatives, and others with whom they have close, important relationships. The
partnership tells the dealers that they are valuable to the community but that the dealing
must stop. The police also inform them that local law enforcement has developed
cases on them but that these cases will be “banked” (i.e., temporarily suspended). The
partnership then gives them an ultimatum: If they continue to deal, the police will
activate the banked cases against them. Finally, social service representatives explain that
they are making special help available to dealers who want to change their lives.

1
Drug Market Intervention: An Implementation Guide

Who Benefits?
Although drug dealers working in the target areas are the focus of a considerable amount
of attention during DMI implementation, DMI is not primarily focused on changing
individuals. Rather, it is about changing the neighborhood.

A deputy chief from the Rockford Police Department summarizes the fundamentals of DMI:
“It’s not about the people you are giving a break, the story is about improving the quality
of life in the community. The goal is returning the neighborhood to the residents so they
are not living in a war zone.”
Source: Hipple and McGarrell 2009

The central moment of the call-in comes when community elders, parents, and
other loved ones look the drug dealers in the eye and say, “We love you and care about
you. We want you to succeed. We need you alive and out of jail. But if you do not
absolutely understand that we disapprove of what you are doing, we are going to
set that straight today.”
On the law enforcement side, the signal moment occurs when officers tell all the dealers
in the room, “We want to take a chance on you. We have done the investigations, and
we have cases against you ready to go. You could be in jail today, but we do not want to
ruin your life. We have listened to the community. We do not want to lock you up, but
this is not a negotiation. If you start dealing again, we will sign the warrant, and you will
go to jail.”
The DMI strategy accomplishes several crucial objectives: It puts nonviolent dealers
in a position where they know that the next time they deal drugs, there will be formal
consequences; it proves to the community that the police are not part of a conspiracy to
fill prisons with their children; and it empowers the community to take a stand.
Since 2004, dozens of cities around the country have implemented the DMI strategy.1
In many of these cities, the targeted drug markets have closed, and there have been large
reductions in violent and drug-related crime, typically with no sign of displacement and
sometimes with a diffusion of benefits into neighboring areas.2 Cities have attained

1. Many have done so with support from the Bureau of Justice Assistance and in collaboration with the Center
for Crime Prevention and Control at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and with Michigan State University.
Other cities have implemented DMI with support from peer cities.
2. Corsaro and McGarrell, An Evaluation of the Nashville Drug Market Initiative.

2
 Introduction

these outcomes in a way that minimizes the use of law enforcement, wins the
strong endorsement of the community, and maximizes the chances that dealers
will be rehabilitated. Most important, in many sites the strategy has resulted in a
fundamentally new understanding and relationship between law enforcement
and the affected community.
DMI requires collaboration between law enforcement and the community. Before
that collaboration can begin, the National Network strongly encourages cities to
address historic tensions, grievances, and misconceptions that law enforcement and the
community have about one another. This process of “truth telling and reconciliation” can
be an uncomfortable step, but most cities find it necessary in forming a true partnership
and rebuilding trust.
This reconciliation process typically includes frank discussion between law enforcement
and community stakeholders about how traditional drug enforcement has been both
ineffective and damaging, about how communities have failed to stand up against local
drug dealing, and about how to move to a new kind of partnership together in order
to close the drug market. The process of police-community reconciliation has proven
very powerful. This guide includes a detailed section on how reconciliation has been
a key part of DMI in many cities (see “Phase 2: Police-Community Reconciliation”
on page 21).
The DMI strategy has produced significant reductions in recorded crime in many
intervention areas. But the statistics do not capture the full picture. The point
of the strategy is to eliminate the overt market, create a fundamental stability, stop
arresting large numbers of young men, reset relationships between the community
and the police, and eliminate the need for endless heavy law enforcement pressure.
For community residents, the bottom line is that they have reclaimed and transformed
their neighborhood.
This guide presents the necessary steps for implementing DMI. While some steps
overlap, they generally work best when taken in the order described. Managing those
steps while coordinating a multiagency partnership can be a demanding process.
As such, the National Network recommends that communities seeking to implement
DMI work with experienced technical advisers prior to implementation. Once a
city has secured commitment to DMI from key partners, leadership is invited to
contact the National Network for additional information on technical assistance
and locating advisers.

3
 Drug Market Intervention: An Implementation Guide

During the initial DMI implementation,

The point of the strategy is to eliminate thecommunities may need short-term funding for
overt market, create a fundamental stability,technical advisers. However, after a community
stop arresting large numbers of young men, launches the strategy, sustaining it primarily
reset relationships between the community requires different allocation of existing resources.
and the police, and eliminate the need for Building a community’s capacity to set strong,
endless heavy law enforcement pressure. new standards against overt drug dealing requires
finding and working with people eager to express
those standards. Social service providers can often coordinate in a more targeted way
without new funding. Law enforcement already has the capacity to build drug cases
when required. All partners have the ability to come together and directly engage a
community’s active nonviolent dealers. Therefore, new investments are generally made
in project coordination and management rather than in these core operational areas.
Note: If a community is experiencing a high level of serious violence, such as shootings
and homicides, the National Network recommends implementing its Group Violence
Intervention.3 DMI is designed specifically to close overt drug markets, though
moderate violence reductions often accompany market closure.

3. See National Network for Safe Communities, Group Violence Intervention.

4
 Introduction

Does It Work?
A wide variety of communities have implemented DMI. The following results illustrate
the impact DMI can have on drug offenses, violent crime, and overall quality of life in
communities that implement the strategy with fidelity to its core principles:

ƒƒ In High Point, North Carolina, the West End, which was the first neighborhood to
test DMI in 2004, has seen a sustained reduction in violent crime. Formal evaluations
have shown violent crime reductions ranging between 12 to 18 percent* and 44 to 56
percent† in targeted areas relative to nontargeted areas. However, studies that found
lesser degrees of sustained violence reductions over time did not assess the core issue
and central objective of DMI: the disappearance of the overt markets in High Point.
Subsequent operations in High Point have eliminated additional street markets.
ƒƒ After a DMI in East Nashville, Tennessee, drug and narcotic offenses declined by
55.5 percent, drug equipment violations by 36.8 percent, and calls for service by
18.1 percent.‡
ƒƒ In the worst drug market of Providence, Rhode Island, calls for police service decreased
58 percent, reported drug crime 70 percent, and drug calls to police 81 percent. The
market was shut down from the moment of the call-in with no sign of displacement.§
ƒƒ In Hempstead, New York, drug arrests in the target area averaged 150 per year. After a
call-in in 2008, drug arrests fell 87 percent in 2008 and continued to decline into single
digits in 2009.**
ƒƒ In Rockford, Illinois, a post-DMI evaluation found a 22 percent reduction in
nonviolent crime in the target area. Community members reported a dramatic
improvement in quality of life.††
Results such as these are common, but they hinge on a community’s ability to do the
work well. Other cities have seen DMI fail to produce results when the strategy was
implemented poorly.

* Corsaro, Hunt, et al., “The Impact of Drug Market Pulling Levers Policing.”
†
Graves et al., “Officially Off the Market.”
‡
Corsaro and McGarrell, “Nashville Drug Market Initiative.”
§
Kennedy and Wong, High Point Drug Market Intervention Strategy.
**
Joseph Wing, internal police data from Hempstead (New York) Police Department, 2009.
††
Corsaro, Brunson, and McGarrell, “Problem-Oriented Policing and Open-Air Drug Markets.”

5
Drug Market Intervention: An Implementation Guide

The problem
DMI is not about drugs; it is about a certain form of drug market. A community can
survive relatively high levels of drug use, but it often cannot handle the additional social
costs of overt markets.
Almost always located in poor, disadvantaged communities of color, such markets cause
and facilitate much direct and indirect harm. Overt drug markets do the following:
• Ease initiation into drug use and support addiction
• Draw local youth into the drug trade
• Draw nonresident drive-through buyers and prostitution into the neighborhood
• Create attractive targets for armed robbers
• Spur the creation of loose drug “crews,” which then frequently get drawn into external
and internal violence
• Lead to the acquisition and use of firearms
• Encourage robbery, burglary, and other crimes by addicts
• Lead to the loss of control of public space
• Drive down property values, drive out businesses, and spur many residents to leave
• Create pro-drug, anti-school, and anti-work norms among youth
Traditional law enforcement responses to such drug markets often lead to profligate
use of arrests and prosecution while still failing to fix the problem. Such enforcement
then fuels other problems, such as single-parent homes; the reentry of large numbers
of drug offenders from prison; large populations of young men whose long-term career
prospects and earnings are seriously damaged by criminal records; young people coming
to regard arrest as a normal, even desirable, part of growing up; the development of a
street code that discourages seeking help from the police; and entrenched resentments
between police and the neighborhoods they serve.
Ordinary residents in such communities find themselves in a terrible position. They
are locked in relationships with dealers, often young people, whom they both value and
fear, and with law enforcement, whose authority and actions they both need and abhor.
These problems produce a toxic cycle of distrust between police and the communities
they serve, which contributes to social and economic inequality. Communities damaged
by overt drug markets often cannot reset their own public safety standards and
informal social controls without outside intervention. Yet narratives in these vulnerable
communities often hold that police are race conspirators and that even the most

6
 Introduction

dangerous drug dealers must be protected from law enforcement. The anger, bitterness,
and racial tension typical of such communities are troubling. In many communities
these problems persist, essentially unchanging, for decades.

The logic of the strategy

The DMI strategy grew out of a set of key principles that are rooted in practical
experience, research, and common sense:
• The fundamental problem. An overt drug market creates worse problems than does
discreet drug dealing. As such, the fundamental problem is not a drug problem but a
drug market problem. DMI does not aim generally to address drugs but specifically
to eliminate overt drug markets.
• Small numbers of drug dealers. Field experience and research has shown that few
offenders, typically ranging from less than 10 to a few dozen, drive most overt drug
markets. The DMI effort by law enforcement, the community, and social services
thus can be focused on that modest number, making DMI a narrow, practical
intervention.4
• Other problems in drug markets. A community does not need to fix all of its other
problems before closing a street market and making the area safer. In fact, promoting
economic development and institutions such as schools and hospitals is impossible
when overt drug markets dominate an area. Closing overt markets will make such
community development work easier and more effective.

What a Few Can Do

It takes only a few people, drug dealers, to wreck a neighborhood. At the same time, it
takes only a few interested community members to get the ball rolling to improve the
neighborhood. Once the effort is started, others will join in.
– Rev. K. Edward Copeland, Pastor, New Zion Missionary Baptist Church, Rockford, Illinois

4. See Corsaro et al., “Problem-Oriented Policing;” Corsaro and McGarrell, Evaluation of Nashville DMI; Hipple et al.,
The High Point Drug Market Initiative; Lambert, “Street Known for Drugs;” Milkovits, “Closing Crack Highway.”

7
Drug Market Intervention: An Implementation Guide

• “Tipping” in overt markets. Once an overt drug market is established, buyers

know they can buy there, and sellers know they can sell there, so both have reason to
continue their business in the same place even in the face of real risks. Enforcement
alone rarely reaches the whole market at once, so even large numbers of drug arrests
over time do not shut the market down. This is a classic tipping dynamic, a problem
with two natural stable points: an overt market is either completely out of control,
or almost no market exists at all. DMI therefore focuses on shutting the market
down all at once and building in a maintenance strategy to stop returning dealers and
buyers from reopening the market.
• Predictable formal sanctions. Low-level drug dealers tend to accrue extensive
criminal histories but face low and almost completely unpredictable risks. Dealers
can average hundreds of transactions between arrests, and most drug arrests result
in low-level sanctions. The prison risk per cocaine transaction, for example, has been
calculated at 1 in 15,000.5 Even when a dealer faces a real risk, he usually doesn’t
know it until he’s been arrested and charged. The deterrence value of ordinary
drug enforcement, therefore, is likely very small. An effective deterrence framework
should produce a meaningful sanction that is made explicitly clear to offenders so
they know they face a real risk before they are arrested. DMI addresses this need
specifically, building solid cases on all drug dealers currently operating in the target
area but banking cases against nonviolent dealers. By banking a drug charge, DMI
substantially raises the risk of a meaningful sanction for future dealing— if the
dealer doesn’t stop, the banked case is simply activated—and communicates that
risk to dealers.
• Minimization of formal sanctions. High levels of drug enforcement cause
enormous harm to individuals and communities, damaging human and social capital,
giving individuals and whole cohorts little reason to finish school and take entry-level
jobs, disrupting families, reducing and even reversing the stigma of conviction and
imprisonment, and poisoning relations between communities and law enforcement.
DMI aims to minimize the use of formal sanctions, emphasizing deterrence and
powerful but informal community standards instead.

5. Boyum and Reuter, An Analytic Assessment.

8
 Introduction

• Informal social control. Research strongly shows that community, family, and peer
standards matter more than law enforcement in shaping behavior.6 In neighborhoods
affected by drug markets, deeply racialized narratives often identify drug enforcement
with the long history of deliberately oppressing the minority community, suggest
government conspiracies in the drug trade, and label law enforcement as racist.7,8,9
The community carries strong feelings against drug offending, and offenders have
real interest in stepping away from the street. However, these norms and narratives,
which focus on the illegitimacy and corruption of law enforcement, prevent
communities and offenders from expressing these interests clearly.
• Mutual misunderstandings. In drug market neighborhoods, law enforcement,
communities, and drug dealers often misunderstand each other. Law enforcement
and other outsiders do not see communities take a clear stand against drug offending
and see that lack of action as a loss of moral strength. Communities see law
enforcement pursuing ineffective, destructive strategies and infer that the criminal
justice system perpetuates corruption and deliberate oppression. Drug offenders
do not see their own communities take a clear stand against drug offending and
believe their actions are excused, tolerated, and even celebrated. Law enforcement
sees offenders as irrational and even sociopathic. These views are false but are almost
never addressed explicitly, so the actual common ground that the parties share—a
desire for personal and public safety—is not apparent.

Effective Standard-Setting
In a culture where law enforcement legitimacy is low, calling something wrong is more
convincing than calling it illegal.
– Pastor Sherman Mason, High Point Community Against Violence

6. See Sampson, “Crime in Cities;” Sampson and Laub, “Crime and Deviance.”
7. Alexander, The New Jim Crow.
8. Sampson and Bartusch, “Legal Cynicism and (Subcultural?) Tolerance.”
9. Brunson, “Police Don’t Like Black People.”

9
Drug Market Intervention: An Implementation Guide

Glossary
The following is a list of terms used in the strategy:
banked case. A prosecutable drug case that law enforcement “holds” unless a dealer
continues dealing. The banked case allows law enforcement to put the dealer on notice
that any known future dealing will result in immediate arrest and prosecution.
call-in. A key moment in the DMI process during which a partnership of law
enforcement, community members, and social service providers delivers the no-dealing
message and an offer of help to nonviolent dealers. The strategy can entail other
methods of notification, but the call-in is its traditional communication tool.10 The
partnership usually holds a call-in at a place of civic importance, and it ideally lasts
about one hour.
call-in candidate. A nonviolent dealer in the selected drug market to whom the DMI
partnership delivers a stop-dealing message and an offer of help in a call-in.
community moral voice. (1) The collective standards of a community affected by
overt drug markets that are articulated through individuals with moral standing and
credibility in the eyes of dealers. (2) The selected individuals who, by the virtue of their
moral standing, have the community’s permission to articulate its standards, aspirations,
frustrations, and expectations and who, by the virtue of their life experiences, have the
respect of dealers.
influential. A person known to have a positive influence in a dealer’s life.

truth telling and reconciliation. The process of openly addressing historic and current
grievances and misconceptions between law enforcement and community members,
particularly in communities of color.
project manager. The person who facilitates DMI implementation at the local level,
taking the lead on the professional and administrative work; coordinating and assisting
law enforcement, community, and social service representatives; and acting as liaison to
governmental agencies and funders.
social service providers. Those able to offer education, job training and placement,
life skills, counseling, mentoring, housing, emergency assistance, and substance
abuse treatment.

10. See Kennedy and Friedrich, Custom Notifications.

10
 Introduction

street outreach workers. Men or women, almost always with their own history of
crime-involvement, who can easily connect to the streets and establish relationships
with those involved in overt drug markets. They aim to disrupt norms and narratives
that promote drug dealing and violence within their communities.
Working Group. A small, stable membership of senior representatives from law
enforcement, community, and social services, chaired by the project manager, who can
meet regularly and coordinate the actions of their respective operational teams. Initially
formed by the core law enforcement representatives, The Working Group integrates
community and social services representatives as partners while implementation develops.

Process, timeline, and partnership

Implementing DMI is often a fluid, nonlinear process, and many cities find that the
phases of the strategy overlap or happen simultaneously (for a detailed DMI flow chart,
see appendix A). The National Network offers the phases as a general guide to progress
(see figure 1).
Figure 1. The five phases of DMI

Source: National Network for Safe Communities

11
Drug Market Intervention: An Implementation Guide

It Takes Time
DMI takes longer than people expect, especially a community’s first time through. The
reason? Mainly because DMI requires building new relationships between government
agencies and the community and between different government agencies themselves. It
may take six to seven months the first time, but it can go faster after participants
gain experience.
– Ed McGarrell, Director, School of Criminal Justice, Michigan State University

Implementation takes varying amounts of time, depending on conditions in different

communities. Once all the necessary pieces are in place, it takes approximately eight
to 11 months to progress from identifying a drug market for intervention to holding
the call-in.
Most jurisdictions do not require new funding to implement the strategy. Getting the
community to set strong new standards against public drug dealing simply requires
that the DMI partnership find and work with people eager and able to express those
standards, and every community is full of such people.
Rather than additional resources, this work requires (1) an understanding of the
strategy’s logic and (2) a sustained local commitment to implementing DMI and
keeping it in place. Fundamentally, five groups need to be involved at various times
throughout the process:
• The affected community
• Law enforcement
• Social service providers
• Influentials
• Active street dealers
The affected community includes faith representatives, community activists, informal
leaders, elders, business owners, ex-offenders, outreach workers, and any other people
whose lives the drug market has compromised.
Law enforcement includes the police department, district attorney, U.S. attorney,
probation, parole, federal enforcement agencies (e.g., DEA, FBI, and ATF), and sheriff ’s
office—the parties capable of taking enforcement action when required.

12
 Introduction

Social service providers include agencies able to offer education, job training
and placement, life skills, counseling, mentoring, housing, emergency assistance,
and substance abuse treatment. These services are usually already available, but
often they are not well organized for this population and can be coordinated in
a more effective way.
Influentials include family members, friends, and other community members
who care about a drug dealer and exert a positive influence in his or her life.
In practice, the DMI partnership can find influentials by looking at a dealer’s
probation or parole records and jail and prison visit lists, by visiting the home
of the dealer, or by simply asking the dealer at the right time.
Active street dealers include those presently selling narcotics in an overt drug
market, whether dealing through street sales, to drive-through buyers, or out
of drug houses. Over time, many people may be involved in street dealing.
Most public drug markets, however, are driven by a relatively small number of
individuals at any given moment.11

Keep it Simple
This is straightforward work, and DMI teams should simply execute it as outlined. You could
make it more complicated, but there’s no need to. We have a method that works.
– Jim Summey, Executive Director, High Point Community Against Violence

11. Kennedy, Deterrence and Crime Prevention.

13
Photo: National Network for Safe Communities
Phase 1: DMI Working Group Formation
…… Choose potential Working Group members

…… Address questions and misconceptions

The Working Group includes a small, stable membership of senior representatives

from law enforcement, community, and social services, chaired by the project manager,
who can meet regularly and coordinate the actions of their respective operational
teams. Initially formed by the principal law enforcement representatives, the Working
Group integrates community and social service representatives as partners while
implementation develops.

Leader Needed
It’s important to think through at the beginning who will be responsible for carrying DMI
forward. Usually this person is from the police department or county or federal prosecutor’s
office. However, the coordinator could come from any of the key partner groups: law
enforcement, prosecution, social services, or the community.

Whoever this is, keep in mind that this person already has a full-time job and cannot do
everything. DMI will require a team effort.
– Ed McGarrell, Director, School of Criminal Justice, Michigan State University

Choose potential Working Group members

Around the country, DMI sites have included many types of representatives in their
DMI Working Groups. For best results, the Working Group should meet regularly
with clear ground rules that require principals-only attendance and a closed-door, no-
distractions working environment. Influentials (see “Glossary” on page 10) are not part
of the initial DMI Working Group, but they participate at a later stage.

15
Drug Market Intervention: An Implementation Guide

When the initial DMI Working Group invites members to join, cities should choose
people who have the authority, energy, or other resources to aid the strategy:
• Law enforcement / government (other than social services). Law enforcement
representatives of the Working Group typically include the police and/or sheriff ’s
department, district attorney, U.S. attorney, probation and parole agencies, federal
enforcement agencies (e.g., DEA, FBI, and ATF), and city manager or mayor’s office.
Because of their independent role in criminal justice, judges cannot be a part of
DMI. Law enforcement personnel will at times need to work separately from other
members of the Working Group because of the need to protect law enforcement-
sensitive information.
• The community. Community representatives of the Working Group typically
include members of formal neighborhood groups, faith-based organizations,
neighborhood activists and other informal leaders, and other influential community
members. Communities that suffer from overt drug markets are also usually home
to large numbers of convicted or formerly incarcerated people who have learned
their own lessons about drugs, crime, and violence. These ex-offenders often feel a
powerful desire to give back to the community and have tremendous standing in the
eyes of younger offenders. Ex-offenders are among the strongest allies in delivering
an antidealing/antiviolence message.
• Social services. Social service representatives of the Working Group include senior
members of agencies able to provide education, job training and placement, life skills,
counseling, mentoring, housing, emergency assistance, and substance abuse treatment.
These representatives may also be street outreach and reentry service workers.
• Project manager. The person assigned to coordinate the Working Group will need
to be someone who has the respect and credibility of all stakeholders involved,
considerable diplomatic and persuasive skills, intimate knowledge of the law
enforcement agencies and neighborhood involved, and a thorough familiarity with all
aspects of the DMI approach, including an understanding of the purpose and logic
of the operation.
Some DMI Working Groups include researchers from a local college or university.
Researchers can help analyze data and possibly conduct an evaluation after an
intervention (see “Assessing Outcomes” on page 64).

16
 Phase 1: DMI Working Group Formation

Technical Assistance
DMI benefits immensely from the support of an experienced technical assistance team
during the strategy’s initial phases. The National Network recommends that the community
interested in launching DMI work with a technical assistance team that can explain, guide,
and ensure fidelity in basic implementation. Technical advisers can provide guidance in the
process of establishing a Working Group and leading the police-community reconciliation
process (i.e., Phase 2).

Typically, advisers require some funding, which the following sources can often secure:

ƒƒ Police or prosecutors’ asset forfeiture funds

ƒƒ Local foundations
ƒƒ State agencies: e.g., a criminal justice coordinating board
ƒƒ Federal sources: e.g., U.S. Department of Justice grant programs*
For more information on how to retain technical advisers, contact the National Network for
Safe Communities at infonnsc@jjay.cuny.edu.

* See “Grants,” U.S. Department of Justice, www.justice.gov/business.

Address questions and misconceptions

Everyone in the DMI Working Group will need to learn about the theory and practice
of the strategy. During Phase 1 (DMI Working Group Formation), the project manager
should address any questions or misconceptions potential members of the DMI
Working Group have. Later, Phase 2 (Police-Community Reconciliation) focuses on
introducing the approach to the community and getting its guidance and advice.
Because the strategy openly acknowledges the failure of traditional drug enforcement
to shut down the market and uses the banked case method, some law enforcement
command staff and officers may not agree with the approach. A technical assistance
team (see sidebar above) experienced with DMI can help address and resolve law
enforcement concerns during these initial phases.

17
Drug Market Intervention: An Implementation Guide

Succession
Moving the DMI strategy forward may require a high-energy, committed project manager.
However, DMI cities should not rely solely on one person’s dynamism. If that person
changes jobs and can no longer support the DMI effort, the cities will lose momentum.

To minimize that risk, cities should construct a strong DMI Working Group that can keep
the effort moving even if an enthusiastic project manager moves on.

The following are some questions that law enforcement representatives have raised in
the past, along with answers that may be helpful to share with them:
• Isn’t this Hug a Thug? No. Law enforcement banks cases so that drug dealers know,
ahead of time and for a fact, that if they continue to deal, there will be immediate
legal consequences. The banked case is not about letting dealers go or giving them
a second chance. Holding the case over dealers’ heads actually puts them in a more
difficult position than ordinary arrest and prosecution usually can.
• Isn’t this about making a deal with drug dealers? No. Law enforcement is not
admitting defeat, and DMI is not a negotiation. Instead, DMI creates a very
powerful, very public community consensus against overt drug activity; it identifies
and arrests high-level and violent dealers; it offers nonviolent dealers a way to
change their lives; and it creates rock-solid legal consequences for those who
decide to continue.
• Isn’t this soft on crime? No. Higher-level dealers and violent offenders go to prison.
Routine law enforcement simply doesn’t work for low-level dealers.
• What about gangs in the drug market context? Gangs have been involved in some
of the drug markets that DMI shut down, but the presence of gangs did not make
any difference as a practical matter.
• Drug dealers make lots of money. Why would they stop? The dealers DMI
focuses on do not make a lot of money. Research shows that most of them would be
better off in minimum wage jobs.12
• Drug dealers don’t care about going to jail. Why would this work? Drug dealers
frequently act as though they do not care about going to jail. But that attitude is
usually bravado, expressed after they have been arrested. Dealers, just like everyone
else, do not want to go to jail. Moreover, traditional law enforcement creates

12. MacCoun and Reuter, “Are the Wages of Sin $30?”

18
 Phase 1: DMI Working Group Formation

uncertain sanctions for drug dealing. Dealers face little risk of being caught and even
less risk of facing consequences when they are caught. DMI informs dealers ahead of
time that continued dealing will lead to swift and certain consequences. Most dealers
change their behavior as a result.
• The community doesn’t care about the dealing. They are all living off drug money.
Not so. Community silence comes from exhaustion, anger, and fear—not complicity.
The majority of people in hard-hit communities are doing the right thing. Research
shows that they hate the violence and disorder even more than residents of other
neighborhoods do because they live with the daily consequences.13 They understand
that the drug markets are toxic, but they no longer expect the police to help. They
may think the police are behind the drugs, and no one has offered them a way to
help stop the drug markets except through jailing their own people. With the truth
telling, reconciliation, and new ways of doing business that DMI brings, these
community members are almost always willing to try something new.
• Why not just arrest everybody who deals drugs? Arresting drug dealers has not
solved the drug market problem. Dealers are easily replaced or come back to the
street, and the market continues.

Selling DMI
One of the most important things for the chief to do is sell officers on the concept and
benefits of DMI. They need to understand the approach before they can embrace it.

We have trained command staff, supervisors, and their officers on the DMI strategy, and
they have accepted it.

We have an assistant chief in charge of the effort to show that DMI is important and to
ensure that the leader has enough authority to make things happen. Officers should look
at this “focused deterrence” approach as a real law enforcement tool, just like a gun or an
arrest. It fills the gap between crime prevention and arrest.
– Marty Sumner, Chief of Police, High Point (North Carolina) Police Department

13. Sampson and Bartusch, “Legal Cynicism and (Subcultural?) Tolerance.”

19
Photo: National Network for Safe Communities
Phase 2: Police-Community Reconciliation
…… Why it matters

…… Getting started

…… The reconciliation process

…… Elevating community standards

Speak and Listen

Police should speak to small groups of community members who want to work toward
change. It’s important to heal the wounds first, showing empathy and understanding for
the community.

Police can admit the shortcomings of their past approaches, acknowledge the harm and
disrespect the community has suffered, listen to people who may be angry, and then invite
the community to work with them to do things differently.

I was unhappy with how police had handled my own family. I had to set that aside and
move ahead.
– Gretta Bush, President, High Point Community Against Violence

DMI views the community as the most important force for setting strong standards
against dealing and for ensuring community safety and well-being. Overt drug markets
are almost always in communities of color that have poor relations with the police. To
make DMI as effective as possible, the National Network recommends that the police
and the community of a new DMI city work to address and overcome the racially
framed antagonism that exists between them.
To heal police-community relations, DMI fosters a process of truth telling and
racial reconciliation in which both parties openly acknowledge grievances. Through
this process, communities and law enforcement often come to see that (1) they
misunderstand each other in important ways, (2) both have been contributing to harms
neither desires, (3) in crucial areas, both want fundamentally the same things, and (4)
there is an immediate opportunity for partnership that can concretely benefit both the
community and its guardians.

21
Drug Market Intervention: An Implementation Guide

Although truth telling and reconciliation can be uncomfortable, this essential process
allows strong community standards to emerge and law enforcement to step back. These
conversations begin to uncover common ground, and affected communities usually feel
strengthened to articulate antidealing and antiviolence norms, in part because they are
less angry with law enforcement and are eager to try a new approach.
Technical assistance can provide invaluable guidance during the sensitive process of
truth telling and racial reconciliation. A technical adviser experienced with DMI can
facilitate the conversations that help law enforcement and community members dispel
long-held and incorrect views of one another.

Why it matters
Entering into a truth-telling and reconciliation process as part of DMI implementation is
important because of the history and perceptions of law enforcement in American cities.
Some people in affected communities, which are essentially all communities of color
(predominantly African American), genuinely believe that law enforcement is using drug
laws and street crime as an excuse to oppress them. Moreover, such communities have
collective memories of being treated badly by law enforcement. America’s modern civil rights
era is less than 50 years old; before it, communities of color were in fact oppressed by law.
Today, many communities of color are policed in intrusive and unpleasant ways. This
can be especially true of drug market areas where street stops, vehicle stops, and warrant
service on houses and apartments are concentrated. In addition, very high levels of arrest
and incarceration leave the community’s men with lifelong criminal records and leave
families broken up by prison stays and other criminal justice system interventions.14
When communities are furious with the police, they are not inclined to speak up
publicly to their own members about drugs and violence. Their silence then leads drug
dealers to believe their communities tolerate or even support their behavior.15
The crime is real, but the current enforcement strategies, which include individual
arrests, don’t change the harmful nature of the market. The community continues to
suffer, and large numbers of young men are arrested and convicted of drug crimes every
year, which damages them and their families. In essence, the current medicine is too
often fatal to the patient, the community.

14. See Rose and Clear, “Incarceration, Social Capital and Crime;” Pettit and Western, “Mass Imprisonment and the
Life Course.”
15. See Brunson, “Police Don’t Like Black People;” Alexander, The New Jim Crow.

22
 Phase 2: Police-Community Reconciliation

Conversely, some in law enforcement genuinely believe the community is corrupt and
complicit in the drug trade and the related street violence. However, the DMI strategy
embraces what research and practical experience demonstrates; communities do not accept
violence and chaos, and they will clearly articulate antidealing standards if approached the
right way and given an opportunity to do so in a setting where dealers have an offer of help
and are told ahead of time about the legal consequences of future dealing.

Getting started
To begin the process of truth telling and racial reconciliation, the DMI Working Group
identifies key community leaders and arranges a series of small meetings between them and
police officials, gradually expanding the meetings to include more community members.

Identifying community partners

Based on experience, the National Network recommends the DMI Working Group seek to
include two types of community partners in the truth-telling and reconciliation process:
• People and organizations with credibility and respect who operate citywide and have
standing in the eyes of offenders and in the eyes of the larger community
• People and organizations with credibility and respect in particular neighborhoods
or smaller geographical areas who have standing in the eyes of offenders and with
residents in the selected DMI neighborhood
Community participants in both the small initial meetings and the large later ones may
be faith leaders and groups, elected officials, ex-offenders, substance abuse counselors,
small business owners, coaches, barbers, or other informally recognized people active in
community well-being.
In many cases, a government official or law enforcement representative involved with
DMI who has been working with the community will be able to identify several initial
people invested in the target area. The process of identifying community partners is, in
effect, ongoing. As the Working Group holds small meetings with community leaders,
gaining their commitment, the group will also be able to ask for the names of other
influential community members who may be valuable to the process.

Holding meetings
The Working Group typically holds a number of meetings to carry out this process.
Usually, police initiate the conversations with the city or community, but sometimes the
police ask other city officials to begin such meetings by explaining to the community that

23
Drug Market Intervention: An Implementation Guide

the police wish to work together in a process of reconciliation for past harms. In other
jurisdictions, the affected community has initiated this engagement by approaching
law enforcement. The meetings can include only members of the specific community
containing the chosen drug market, or they can address the entire city and then work
their way down to the targeted area.
The process usually begins with small, private meetings between senior police officials
(almost always chiefs) and community leaders. The first few meetings typically include
no more than a few community leaders and police officials working together to outline
the core reconciliation messages (for more on messaging, see the next section, “The
reconciliation process”). Law enforcement also explains the DMI process and answers
questions the community leaders may have. The challenge is to win trust, to address
racial issues, and to convince community members that law enforcement is willing to do
business differently than before. This may require repeated meetings and visits with the
community members involved.
After these initial meetings, the Working Group holds larger meetings, sometimes
with 30 to 40 people. During later meetings, community leaders already committed
to the process stand in solidarity with law enforcement as together they deliver the
reconciliation message to a broader portion of the community. This solidarity helps
demonstrate trust and collaboration between law enforcement and the community to
the newer groups of neighbors and community residents attending the meetings.
The DMI partnership can hold these meetings before, during, or after the Working
Group identifies a drug market and dealers. High Point, for example, held an extensive,
citywide conversation on these issues before identifying drug markets. However, if
word of the strategy leaks too early, undercover investigations may be jeopardized. Law
enforcement can also line up cases against dealers in a selected drug market and then
engage the surrounding neighborhood, explaining that the plan is to start the new
approach in that particular area.

The reconciliation process

The DMI Working Group should work with both the police and community to
prepare them for the reconciliation message and lay the groundwork for a productive
process that builds trust, addresses objections, and allows the DMI effort to proceed.

24
 Phase 2: Police-Community Reconciliation

To heal police-community relations, both parties must openly acknowledge grievances

and air and debunk misunderstandings.

Preparation work for law enforcement

The DMI Working Group should work with the chief of police and other police
executives to help them understand community perspectives. Police executives, in
turn, must convince command staff and frontline officers that the DMI approach has
merit and that affected communities will stand in partnership with law enforcement if
approached the right way.
Law enforcement partners involved in strategy implementation need to understand the
following key issues about community beliefs:
• Many disenfranchised community members look at law enforcement as racist
conspirators getting rich off of the drug trade and the arrest and incarceration of young
men of color. Law enforcement must take this perception seriously. While this view
is wrong, it is enormously consequential as long as the community believes it.
• Much of the deeper historical narrative on which this belief is based is absolutely
true. Until relatively recently, the law was a tool of deliberate racial oppression.
Law enforcement needs to acknowledge the real history of slavery, Jim Crow,
reconstruction, and other forms of legal racial oppression that have beset minority
communities. These issues are living memory for many in the black community
and are strong parts of collective history and memory. They influence how almost
everyone in affected communities sees and understands law enforcement’s intentions
and actions today.
• Street-level drug enforcement is not uncommonly tainted by inappropriate activity,
ranging from outright corruption to, more frequently, well-intended but improper
practices like unjustified street stops, illegal searches, and corner clearing. Because
of the community’s perspective, these actions get amplified and become entrenched
in its narrative.
• Approaches like stop-and-frisk may be legal but often will still not be well received
when they are taken in volume, are limited to certain areas, and/or involve
disrespectful treatment of community members. Some steps law enforcement takes
with the intent of protecting the community can in fact harm the community:
e.g., research shows that high, concentrated levels of arrests, prosecution, and
incarceration cause active harm to neighborhoods.16
16. See Rose and Clear, “Incarceration, Social Capital and Crime.”

25
Drug Market Intervention: An Implementation Guide

• What law enforcement reads as community disengagement, complicity, and support

for criminality is often a silence resulting from anger and alienation. Most people
in dangerous neighborhoods greatly dislike the current state of overt drug dealing
and social disorder, but they will not stand with law enforcement that they view as
unhelpful, oppressive, or racist.

Preparation work for communities

The DMI Working Group should perform similar preparation when it first approaches
key community figures about these issues. The National Network recommends that
the Working Group at first approach no more than a few people and choose those with
standing in the eyes of the community. These people will be best placed to take on the
task of translating prevalent law enforcement norms and narratives.
Community partners involved in strategy implementation often need to understand the
following key issues about law enforcement beliefs:
• Law enforcement thinks the community doesn’t care about the crime and violence,
that everybody’s living off drug money, and that the community is complicit. The
community must take this perception seriously. While this view is wrong, it is
enormously consequential as long as law enforcement believes it.
• This misunderstanding is supported by the fact that there are few strong, consistent,
public community voices against crime and violence; that police misbehavior gets
loud community attention but residents’ misbehavior gets very little; and especially
that the community appears silent about homicide and serious violence.
• Law enforcement frequently looks at young men not finishing school, not taking
entry-level work, and using kids as low-level drug operators and concludes that the
community no longer has any moral center. They do not hear elders promoting
community standards and thus conclude there are no meaningful elders.
• Law enforcement hears the community constantly refer to historical grievances and
hears excuses and victimhood.
• Law enforcement knows that much of what it is doing is ineffective, particularly with
respect to drug enforcement, but cannot think of anything better to do, especially
given its perception of community complicity.

26
 Phase 2: Police-Community Reconciliation

• Law enforcement mostly doesn’t understand, or take seriously, the unintended

consequences of high levels of felony records and incarceration in a community. It
tends to assign responsibility for those bad outcomes, such as contributing to high
levels of unemployed men, to communities themselves.

Talks with the Community

First, I had to come to the realization that what we, the police, were doing was not working.

We had a long history of baggage between the police and the minority community. How did they
come to believe that the police don’t care? Well, the crack house goes on and on despite their calls to
police. Or they see us just driving by after they call to report a guy selling drugs on the corner.

But we do care. People don’t know the many reasons we might seem to be just driving by. We could be
checking the computer, responding to another call, etc. Let’s acknowledge that the police do care; let’s
set this straight.

Let’s also talk about what the community does that makes police think the community doesn’t care.

I’ll say, “I realize we have let you down, and I apologize for that.” I’ll start to see some heads nodding in
agreement. I’ll say, “Give us one more chance. Let’s work together.” This difficult speech has gone well
every time.

I have even told the community that if they didn’t want to do this, we wouldn’t. But I knew the talks
were working when, as soon as I finished speaking, a hand shot up in the back, and a woman asked,
“When do we start?”

This is important groundwork to do outside the call-ins. In a given community, we’ll have one meeting
with about 10 people, then ask them to invite their neighbors to another meeting, growing these
meetings to 30-40 people, sometimes as many as 100. It takes about three visits to a community to
pass the word and explain the strategy effectively.

For chiefs who don’t want to admit mistakes, they should realize that what they were doing simply
wasn’t effective despite their hard work. They don’t have to admit any bad motives, but they can’t
continue to claim credit just for effort.

What we were doing was ineffective and unpleasant for neighborhood residents. People might be able
to tolerate aggressive and effective policing, but not policing that is ineffective and aggressive.

For us, the payoff is that the city is far safer than it used to be. Everybody wants that.
– James Fealy, former Chief of Police, High Point (North Carolina) Police Department

27
Drug Market Intervention: An Implementation Guide

• Law enforcement genuinely believes that many of the young men in the community
are sociopaths, or at least irrational, and sees bad behavior such as dealing and
shootings as clear evidence of their character. Therefore, law enforcement does not
think about the lack of other choices available to these young men, peer pressure, and
community norms against calling the police.
• Law enforcement sees “stop snitching” and the unwillingness to come forward as fear
or complicity, not as anger against law enforcement.

Methods of racial reconciliation

To begin this process, a senior law enforcement representative—usually the chief of
police—delivers core reconciliation messages in special meetings with community
members. These typically include an acknowledgement of harm, ineffectiveness, or
both. Law enforcement can use the following options in combination (other content,
framings, or approaches may also work):
• An outright apology for the unintended consequences of traditional enforcement,
and a recognition of a range of bad actions and practices
• A recognition of damaging but unintended consequences of legal law
enforcement action
• A recognition that traditional law enforcement actions aimed at addressing violence
and drugs have not been successful
Taking these measures in earnest allows law enforcement to begin rebuilding trust
with communities. If the community does not trust the police, it will not stand with
the police and tell dealers that the drug market is intolerable. Agencies often take the
following additional measures to demonstrate their seriousness about reconciliation and
community-building:
• Hold small group meetings with active and organized residents, community
activists, and neighbors invited by those parties to tell them the police will be “doing
something” in their neighborhood; to acknowledge the police’s past lack of success,
high recidivism, etc.; and to ask meeting participants to join the police in finding a
better way.
• Hold community events, such as barbecues and school supply giveaways for students.
• Increase officers’ physical presence and availability: e.g., walk through the
neighborhood and talk with residents on street corners, at coffee shops, and
at their houses.

28
 Phase 2: Police-Community Reconciliation

A Needed Cleansing
Seeing a white chief speak this message of reconciliation helps wash away years of bad
feeling. His statement disarms the community’s objections. It deflates a mother’s claim that
law enforcement is picking on her child.
– Pastor Sherman Mason, High Point Community Against Violence

Responses to community misperceptions of law enforcement

The following are questions and comments that affected communities often pose in
these meetings, followed by abridged versions of the key responses that law enforcement
can deliver:
• Why are you picking on us? There are plenty of drugs in the suburbs. We are
focusing only on neighborhoods where street drug markets are accompanied by
violence and the other direct and indirect harm they cause and facilitate. (Law
enforcement can provide data to show decisions are not being driven by prejudice
or politics.)
• The police are behind the drugs. Why would they give people a second chance?
Some people believe the CIA is behind crack and that drug laws are simply a
new way for the police and white people to oppress people of color. That belief is
false. The drug war and its impact on communities have produced many negative
consequences, but it is not a conspiracy.
• Police could switch drugs off if they wanted to, but they don’t. We don’t know
how to fix this. We can’t keep drugs out of the country, out of this city, or out of this
neighborhood, or keep them from being sold.
• Police could stop the dealing by taking out a few powerful kingpins. Because
they don’t, we feel law enforcement wants the dealing to continue and is
benefitting from it. The federal government and DEA have been trying to do this
for decades. It just doesn’t work. Another kingpin always steps in.
• Drug dealers are on the corner and you just drive by them. You could stop them
if you wanted to, but you don’t so you must not care or be benefitting. Building
solid drug cases is not that simple, and prosecutions do not necessarily result in
meaningful sanctions. Thus, we allocate scarce resources accordingly. That does not
mean we support the dealing or are paid off to ignore it.

29
Drug Market Intervention: An Implementation Guide

• If cops didn’t come in and arrest all of our kids for drugs, they wouldn’t have
jobs and make overtime. There wouldn’t be any reason to run all the prisons,
and so the prison industrial complex would collapse and white correctional
officers couldn’t make union wages. The whole drug war is just an investment
vehicle to enrich whites. This is not a conspiracy. If drugs went away, we would still
have plenty of work to do.
• Too much law enforcement action is focused on arresting black men on drug
charges. This is racism. Drug enforcement is often the best (or only) tool we have
to address violence. It is not a matter of disliking young black men. And we agree
that too many black men are being arrested. DMI is one way to change that.

The way forward

The law enforcement partners can make the following points as a way of moving
relations forward:
• We are frustrated, too. We are trying to do a good job. We want the community
to be safe, but what we are doing is not working well enough. We would like to do
better, and now we may have a way.
• We understand that most people in the community are not acting dangerously, and
we understand that some of those who are may feel they have no other option. We
want them to be safe and to be able to ask us for help. We understand that some of
the people committing violent and drug crime in your neighborhood do not even live
there. We understand that outsiders, mostly white, do terrible damage when they
come to your community to buy drugs, and we want to stop it.
• We understand we have given you a difficult choice because as we try to protect you,
we have asked you to tell us about people in the community so we can put them in
prison. We understand that while you want the crime and violence to go away, your
people are important to you. We think there is a different decision that we can make
together now.
• We would like to do things differently and in a way that respects the neighborhood;
that respects the rationality of everyone; that focuses our serious attention on those
few individuals who are really hurting the community; and that puts them in prison
only if they keep hurting the community or do not respond to an ultimatum to stop
and a genuine offer of help.

30
 Phase 2: Police-Community Reconciliation

Photo: National Network for Safe Communities

• We understand what you want: less crime and violence and fewer arrests and
incarceration. We want the same.
• We believe offenders in the community will listen to you. We understand that we
have no moral standing with them, but you do. We believe we can work with you to
create safe ways for you to engage with them and set community standards. That will
be very powerful.
• Would you be willing to work with us to try something new that would let us back
off and would let you step forward?
Engaging in this process of truth telling and reconciliation typically leads to a consensus
between law enforcement and the community on the following points:
• The violence must stop.
• Public drug dealing must stop.
• Both the community and law enforcement would like to see current offenders move
toward legitimate participation in the community.
• A strong community stance against violence and dealing is preferable to intrusive
law enforcement.
• Arrest and prosecution should be minimized.
• As a last resort, law enforcement should take action with full community support.
By addressing the usually unacknowledged racial tension that permeates these issues,
law enforcement can create an opportunity for a fundamentally different relationship
with the community.

31
 Drug Market Intervention: An Implementation Guide

Best Practices in Outreach and Police-Community Reconciliation

Hempstead, New York
It was essential to meet with and win over the right people, everyone we thought was vested in the community of Hempstead.
Because I already worked with the community, if I didn’t know who was who, I knew who to contact to find out.
We held many one-on-one meetings to help key community members understand DMI. We got them on board and asked who
else we should talk to. The one-on-one meetings showed them we considered them important and allowed them to express their
opinions. A local drug and alcohol counselor and the leader of a local basketball program helped bring the community to our side.
When you talk to community leaders, have a formal list of questions. Your outreach team should stick to a script as much as
possible and use terms consistently when explaining DMI so community members can all gain a correct understanding of the
strategy. Meetings also provide a chance for community members to get answers to their questions.
Community members can give important input to make DMI more successful in the local context. In Hempstead, the community
helped us with the language of the invitation letter to brothers and sisters (our name for the call-in candidates). They also told
us the library, which we had suggested as the site for the gathering (our name for the call-in), was too close to the police pre-
cinct. We all agreed to move the event two buildings away to the African American Museum.
– Risco Mention-Lewis, Deputy Police Commissioner, Suffolk County
The district attorney’s office took the lead on this DMI (funding police investigations and follow-up patrols with asset forfeiture
money). We first met with unelected community leaders, such as clergy and nonprofit employees, to discuss the ideas and
method of DMI. We then held larger community meetings of 40 or more attendees, and the community leaders we had won
over earlier also attended in our support.
We held these meetings every Monday evening from October through December, only missing Thanksgiving and Christmas. At
the meetings, we asked the community what it wanted. By the fourth meeting, people were ready to get going.
At the meetings, we directly addressed racial issues in sometimes nerve-wracking sessions. The community said they wanted
our help but did not want to simply lock people up. We explained that we were trying to shut down the drug market and did
not wish to break up families, and we were ready to try something new, working together with the community. Speaker David
Kennedy said that both sides were underestimated, “the community in its capacity for forgiveness, and law enforcement in its
understanding of the community.”
After the meetings, the community was still cautious but was willing to work with us.
It is important to not make any promises that cannot be kept and to keep the promises made. For example, if the invitation letter
says people who do not show up for the gathering will be arrested, they must be arrested. Trust is hard to develop and easy to lose.
– Meg Reiss, former Assistant District Attorney, Nassau County
Raleigh, North Carolina
Because of the importance of trust, before starting DMI, our chief of police hosted meetings with the community in three possi-
ble DMI sites. We wanted to gauge the community’s feelings before proceeding. Present were police command staff, line officers,
and numerous community representatives, including formal leaders, members of the Citizens’ Advisory Council, residents, minis-
ters, store owners, and representatives of nonprofit organizations that would be service providers under the DMI strategy.
The meetings tested the concept of trust. Police were asked to work differently. Line officers asked why offenders should be giv-
en a second chance. Community members asked whether the police were sincere in trying DMI and whether they would simply
look for a flimsy excuse to arrest call-in candidates. Attendees did not start in perfect agreement.
– Kristen Roselli, Community Services Director, City of Raleigh

32
 Phase 2: Police-Community Reconciliation

Elevating community standards

In addition to acknowledging past harms, law enforcement delivers a message to the
community that DMI cannot work unless the community sets clear standards against
public dealing. The DMI strategy relies on the affected community, which is composed
of hundreds of residents, stating that it will not tolerate the drug market, which is
supported by a few individuals. In the West End of High Point, North Carolina, for
example, the police identified only 16 dealers among thousands of other residents.

Raising Standards
In Rockford, Illinois, the DMI team urged the community not only to stand up against the
drug market but also to demand better delivery of city services to the community overall.

We told the community that we needed them to follow up on requests for services; for
example, going after the city to fix street lights. We wanted them to raise the standards
for their neighborhood.

To emphasize the importance of improving the community overall, the chief of police
arranged for street sweepers to clean up the drug market area the day after the call-in.
Code enforcement, too, was ramped up to deal with boarded-up buildings in the area.
– Rev. K. Edward Copeland, Pastor, New Zion Missionary Baptist Church, Rockford, Illinois

As part of the reconciliation process, law enforcement or the project manager explains
to the community that in order to close the market, and keep it closed without
arresting everybody, the community needs to make it clearer to their own young people
that dealing is no longer acceptable. In High Point, the DMI partnership asked the
community, “Are you saying no? Are you making a clear community statement about
what is right and wrong and what you expect of your own?” The community’s response
was, “No. We’re not doing that, and we know it. Our parents and grandparents would
never have tolerated this situation, and if we are putting up with it,” community
members acknowledged, “that is on us.” There is a clear, positive dynamic here: the more
the community steps forward, the more law enforcement can step back.
Generally, this means that law enforcement clearly tells the community that only the
community can set its own standards about right and wrong. No one from the outside
can do it. If the only clear, public voice telling young men not to shoot people or sell

33
Drug Market Intervention: An Implementation Guide

drugs is from law enforcement or other

The more the community steps forward, the outsiders, there is little hope that anything
more law enforcement can step back. will change. Police can carefully explain that
from their perspective the most important
step to closing the market is that the community tell those who are driving the drug
market that the community wants them to stop.
This focus on mutual acceptance of responsibility, and mutual change, is part of what
sets the truth telling and reconciliation process apart from more traditional police-
community conversations. Usually, police look at communities and say, “You change,”
and communities look at police and say, “You change.” Here, both sides say, “We’ve both
been a part of this, and we both have to change.”

34
Phase 3: Identification and Preparation
…… Identify and select a drug market

…… Identify all dealers

…… Prepare cases

…… Choose cases to bring and cases to bank

…… Identify influentials

…… Prepare social service structure

…… Develop communications strategy

Phase 3 requires that the members of the DMI Working Group organize the
intervention and collaborate with one another to identify a target drug market, all
dealers operating within it, and community members to demand it close. Because
identifying dealers and preparing cases often includes sensitive law enforcement
information, some of these tasks will need to be closed to non-law enforcement
members of the DMI Working Group.

Mind the Recipe

In the kitchen, you can adapt a recipe to local conditions, perhaps changing baking time
at high altitude, but you shouldn’t leave out any ingredients entirely. DMI is similar. Sites
should adapt it to the local context, but if they leave out any key ingredients or steps, they
won’t get the desired result.

For example, without a careful delivery of invitations, including follow-up, there won’t be a
good turnout at the call-in. That’s an essential ingredient.

By contrast, sites can enjoy leeway in where to hold the call-in and what to call the
candidates.
– Ed McGarrell, Director, School of Criminal Justice, Michigan State University

35
Drug Market Intervention: An Implementation Guide

Identify and select a drug market

The National Network recommends that the DMI Working Group be as objective as
possible about identifying and selecting an overt drug market for attention. Police
departments know where their markets are without special analysis. However, taking
a more documented approach provides two essential benefits: it ensures the Working
Group chooses the most serious drug market, and it provides a base of evidence to show
community members, politicians, and the media why the Working Group has chosen that
market. An experienced technical adviser can help agencies produce documented analysis
that a drug market is extremely active and justify the focus on that market. Thus, this
analysis will demonstrate that police are not picking on a particular area but have chosen it
for objective reasons.

Data-Based Site Selection

We chose markets based on the data. Some people didn’t like our priority and quit the
project. However, if you’re data-based, you can prove the choice of site was not personal or
political; it was chosen to best help the city.
– Gretta Bush, President, High Point Community Against Violence

Based on data, we had three roughly similar drug markets on which we could focus DMI. We
chose the market that was in a neighborhood whose residents would work with the police.

When selecting a DMI site, the market chosen does not have to be literally the worst in the city.
It should be a very bad market in an area with assets that will participate in the DMI strategy.
– Kristen Rosselli, Community Services Director, City of Raleigh, North Carolina

Police departments typically examine the following sources to select a target drug market:
• Maps of drug arrests
• Calls for service
• Field contacts
• Part I, weapons, sexual, and prostitution offenses
• Serious crimes reviewed for drug connection
• Patrol officers
• Vice/narcotics investigators
• Informants
• Crime tip lines

36
 Phase 3: Identification and Preparation

For the most part, DMI starts by focusing on the worst drug market in the city as
measured objectively. However, DMI requires robust local community support and
sufficient social service delivery. If those resources are not available in the neighborhood
surrounding that market, a different but still bad drug market can be chosen—as long
as it has a strong community network and access to social services.

Identify all dealers

Once the DMI Working Group selects a market, law enforcement representatives of
the Working Group (often vice or narcotics detectives) identify all dealers currently
active in the market. This is important because intervening simultaneously with most or
all dealers is crucial to disrupt the entire market.
This research takes place within two main categories:
• Records review and interviews. Law enforcement representatives of the Working
Group focus on the drug market area and review every arrest report, incident report,
and field interview associated with drug offenses; survey patrol officers, probation
officers, street narcotics officers, and community members; review all known dealers’
associates; and review suspects’ current activities.
• Undercover investigations. Identifying all the dealers without an investigation is
usually not possible. For example, people who have been dealing drugs in a particular
area may no longer be dealing or at least may no longer be dealing in that specific
target area. Moreover, police may have never arrested current dealers in the area, so
those dealers would not appear in police records. Even a survey of police officers may
not yield the names of all current dealers.
As such, law enforcement could skip the records review and interviews and still identify
the current dealers through good investigation. The initial list of dealers will shrink
as the DMI Working Group eliminates the names of people who are no longer active,
are not actually dealing, or are in prison. This process will likely show that the number
of active dealers is smaller than previously thought. High Point’s first DMI site, for
example, turned out to have only 16 active dealers, its second site 16, its third 26, and
its fourth 32. These figures mirror the numbers of dealers identified in other DMI sites
such as Nashville, Tennessee, and Rockford, Illinois.

37
Drug Market Intervention: An Implementation Guide

Research Help
It’s essential to address the correct location, where the problem actually is rather than just
where one thinks it is. Selecting a target drug market and identifying dealers requires analysis,
not gut feelings.

Some police departments have sufficient analysis capability while others do not. If not, an
agency can partner with a researcher for help in analyzing the problem accurately. It will be
necessary to analyze incident reports, arrest reports, geographic information systems, calls for
service, and gang data.
– Richard Janikowski, Associate Professor,
Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Memphis

Prepare cases
The next step of the DMI strategy involves preparing cases for all active dealers. While law
enforcement continues to arrest the more dangerous drug dealers (i.e., those with a record
of violence), it forgoes arresting the lower-level, nonviolent dealers and instead invites them
to the call-in. However, law enforcement must still build cases on both types of dealers to
remove the dangerous ones and to create certain consequences for future dealing by the
nonviolent dealers.
Law enforcement builds these cases through traditional undercover investigative
methods, including audio/video recordings of controlled drug buys, placement of
undercover officers, and use of confidential informants to make controlled buys. Some
sites make as many as three documented buys from each dealer to build a solid case.
To prepare these cases effectively, law enforcement must align the full resources of the
criminal justice system—local, state, and federal—to coordinate enforcement in the
target drug market. Agency leadership must assign responsibility for the DMI strategy
to an operational team, usually consisting of police, an assistant district attorney, an
assistant U.S. attorney, probation, parole, and any other participating enforcement
agencies. Furthermore, that agency leadership must protect the ability of this team to
conduct the DMI strategy and hold the team accountable for doing so. The purpose of
this operational team is to identify and prepare cases against all active dealers and to
coordinate swift prosecution for those with a criminal history of violence or those who
attend the call-in and reoffend.

38
 Phase 3: Identification and Preparation

Sure Leverage
In Nassau County, New York, the Hempstead Police Department spent eight months
conducting investigations in Terrace-Bedell, a six-block area that accounted for 80
percent of Hempstead drug arrests. With audio and video, they documented three buys
from each dealer.

Choose cases to bring and cases to bank

At this point, police and prosecutors meet to determine which cases to bring to court
for immediate prosecution and which to bank, according to criteria the Working Group
has set. Other members of the DMI Working Group, including community members,
often participate in this selection process.

Cases to bring
Each city will have to set its own criteria. However, DMI typically requires that law
enforcement, shortly before the call-in, arrest drug dealers with a history of violence or
gun crimes.
For example, the DMI Working Group in Hempstead, New York, based its criteria for
arrest on a dealer’s history of violent crimes. DMI Working Groups in Milwaukee and
Chicago took additional steps and “reached out to community members, vice/narcotics
officers, and gang units to ensure they were not offering a second chance to someone
who was a danger to the community.”17
The timing for arresting the dealers who will not be invited to the call-in varies by city.
Depending on the status of undercover investigations and other police exposure, the
law enforcement operational team may arrest the dealers a longer or shorter time before
the call-in.
Once arrested, dealers should receive special attention from state and federal
prosecutors, an arrangement that the operational team must secure in advance. More
serious sentences will send a stronger message to the dealers whom the DMI Working
Group gives a second chance.

17. Hipple and McGarrell, “BJA Drug Market Intervention Implementation Guide.”

39
 Drug Market Intervention: An Implementation Guide

Cases to bank
The Working Group should invite drug dealers with no criminal history of violence
to attend the call-in. DMI refers to these dealers as “call-in candidates.” For these
candidates, law enforcement should create banked cases.
Law enforcement banks narcotics cases by developing audio and video evidence during
controlled drug buys and holding the cases inactive unless the dealer continues dealing.
This practice demonstrates to dealers that future drug dealing and other crimes will
result in meaningful formal consequences, as it increases the chance of legal sanctions
for continued dealing to roughly 1 in 1. Given the reality of delays and plea deals after
an arrest, banked cases may have more of an effect on dealers than cases brought to
court. Banking these cases also shows the community that the police are not primarily
interested in jailing its young men.
The concept of banking cases is often difficult for law enforcement practitioners to
accept. However, once they fully understand the logic of the DMI strategy, many are
willing to take the chance and forgo immediate prosecution for dealers who do not have
histories of violence and are not engaged in major trafficking. In fact, law enforcement
“holds” cases in this way already as part of active investigations but does so in different
contexts, such as developing confidential informants or supporting the prosecution of
more serious offenders. In essence, DMI simply asks
Banking these cases also shows the law enforcement to do something it already does but
community that the police are not primarily for a different purpose.
interested in jailing its young men. The Working Group must decide in advance what
offenses will activate a banked case. Predictable
sanctions strengthen the credibility of the DMI message. Clearly, a return to drug
dealing should trigger the banked case, but what about other lesser or unrelated
offenses? This decision can vary across jurisdictions. For example, one jurisdiction
may decide to move forward on banked cases if a call-in candidate later sells drugs but
choose not to for other offenses while another jurisdiction may activate cases if the
candidate later commits any crime. Once settled, the criteria for activating banked cases
must be shared clearly with candidates at the call-in.
The length of time law enforcement holds onto banked cases will depend on whether a
dealer who reoffends commits the offense the Working Group determined to be a trigger.
If the offender does not commit further offenses, in most jurisdictions the banked case
will eventually be subject to the statute of limitations and expire. For the purposes of

40
 Phase 3: Identification and Preparation

DMI, such expiration doesn’t matter; by the time it

happens, the target drug market should be entirely or The criteria for activating banked cases
almost entirely inactive. must be shared clearly with candidates at
the call-in.

Identify influentials
Once the DMI Working Group settles on a list of dealers to invite to the call-in, it can
start identifying one or more “influentials” for each dealer.
DMI relies, in part, on the notion that dealers will stop when those around them make
clear they should. The message to stop will come clearly from the police, key community
members, social service providers, and influentials (i.e., individuals who are personally
close to call-in candidates).
These influentials may be family members (primarily mothers and grandmothers but
also fathers and guardians); trusted friends or elders from the community; or pastors,
coaches, mentors, or similar advisors. DMI includes influentials in the process in the
hope that they will encourage candidates to attend the call-in, accompany the candidates
and reassure them at the call-in, and help keep them on the right path (avoiding drug
dealing and seeking social services) after the call-in. Influentials do not have a formal
speaking role at the call-in but are there to support and guide the call-in candidates.
Not all figures close to dealers are in fact good influences, and a standard question among
those new to DMI is whether mothers, grandmothers, fathers, and the like will steer call-in
candidates well or whether they will try to undermine the strategy (perhaps by accusing
the police of setting up or profiling the dealer). In practice, most family members have been
willing, even grateful and eager, to help candidates turn their lives around and avoid prison.
The Working Group can use some of the following means to identify influentials:
• If call-in candidates have been under community supervision, ask their probation or
parole officer which people are important in the candidates’ lives.
• Review the candidates’ contact history, booking records, pre-sentencing reports,
probation officer contact logs, and jail visit lists.
• Ask the candidates whom they trust and who cares about them.
• Ask one influential who some other influentials might be for a given call-in candidate.
Not all people initially identified this way will be good influences. For example, not every
person who visited a candidate in jail is the right type of figure. The DMI Working
Group will have to ask around and use its judgment to choose true influentials.

41
Drug Market Intervention: An Implementation Guide

Prepare social service structure

Most communities have existing social service structures that meet the needs of DMI,
especially because the number of dealers driving a market is typically quite small. Even
in the most intense market, active dealers rarely exceed 30 or 40 individuals.
However, the services available are often not well organized for this particular
population. The DMI Working Group can identify a lead provider that offers as
many reentry-style services as possible in-house, including mental health treatment,
case management, mentorship, education, employment training and placement, crisis
intervention, drug treatment, housing, and emergency services.
Where no one provider can deliver all of these services, the Working Group can
assemble multiple providers. In this case, one lead agency should provide intake and
case management for all dealers who come forward. A senior representative of this lead
agency should join the Working Group from there forward.

Why Help Matters

Drug offenders should have help to do better with their lives. This is important for at least
two reasons. First, if dealers start leading legitimate lives, that will help prevent their and
the community’s return to drug dealing. Second, if they do not, but a legitimate offer of
help has been made, they no longer have any excuse for criminality, and the narrative that
justifies drug dealing has been undercut.
Source: Kennedy and Wong 2009

Social service representatives of the Working Group can coordinate services more
effectively by providing a “one-stop shop”—a single access point with one phone number
that will provide call-in candidates immediate access to all services. Providers should
offer priority assistance to DMI participants who call that number.
Social service providers and other DMI partners should promise help, but it is critical
that they do not promise results. For example, social service providers cannot always
guarantee a job for call-in candidates.

42
 Phase 3: Identification and Preparation

The DMI Working Group should take the following steps before the call-in:
• Set aside adequate time for preparation. Make a realistic assessment of resources
and services available and unavailable. Make plans to obtain the necessary resources,
whether by soliciting additional help or reallocating existing resources.
• Establish and document realistic commitments and goals from each service provider.
• Identify a point person who will work to organize all services and act as a liaison,
providing updated reports to all stakeholders. Include this person in DMI Working
Group meetings.
• Establish a “one-stop shop” with a single phone number that gives call-in candidates
priority access and intake when they call.
• Arrange for dedicated on-call case managers experienced with this population for
continuous follow-up during the first three to four months.
• Create a standardized intake instrument and protocol to assess the needs of
the individuals.
• Establish and systematically maintain information and outcome data on call-in candidates.
The following services are among the most commonly needed in DMI communities:
• Employment preparation and placement
• Housing
• Transportation
• Mentorship and support
• Help enrolling in GED programs
• Substance abuse treatment
• Family counseling and related services
At this stage, social service providers should know that the strategy is underway and
that investigations are taking place, but they do not yet need to know which geographic
area the DMI strategy will target.
Early meetings with social service providers enable the Working Group to clarify the
role they should play during and after the call-in: i.e., being prepared to provide priority
services to call-in candidates and staying in touch with the social services representatives
of the DMI Working Group.

43
Drug Market Intervention: An Implementation Guide

Promises: Make Few, Keep All

Service providers will have to get together long before the call-in and figure out what they
can truly deliver to the call-in candidates. They should never promise, or even mention,
services they cannot provide. Unfulfilled social service promises undercut the DMI strategy,
convincing call-in candidates that the service providers cannot be trusted, just like
everyone else.
– Jim Summey, Executive Director, High Point Community Against Violence

Develop communications strategy

DMI takes an unusual approach to eliminating drug markets, and as a result, media
accounts sometimes misrepresent it. In particular, the media can portray DMI as
excessively “hard” (e.g., “U.S. attorney threatens drug dealers with federal prison”) or
excessively “soft” (e.g., “police chief offers drug dealers jobs”). Before holding the first
call-in, the Working Group will want to engage with existing media contacts or develop
a working relationship with a reporter or media outlet. This will facilitate the most
accurate press coverage during the DMI implementation process.
Based on the experiences of different cities, the elements of an effective public
communications strategy include the following:
• The Working Group reaches out to a trusted local reporter during the early stages
and provides detailed information about the strategy and implementation process.
The Working Group asks the reporter to delay coverage until an agreed-upon time,
usually after the first call-in.
• The Working Group prepares a press release for the media to issue after the first call-
in. The press release ensures that one accurate account of the project and call-in is in
circulation. Writing an op-ed piece on the strategy for a local newspaper may also be
helpful (for a sample press release, see appendix F).
• The Working Group maintains communication with community members and the
press about cases that law enforcement brings against dealers, linking them explicitly
to the DMI approach.

44
Phase 4: Call-In Preparation and Execution
…… Preparing the call-in

…… Executing the call-in

The call-in is a key event in the DMI strategy during which the DMI partnership tells
candidates that law enforcement has developed cases on each of them, that they must
stop dealing, that the community cares about them and demands they stop, and that
social services are available to those who want help.

Preparing the call-in

Planning the call-in is a somewhat flexible process, and some tasks may overlap with
others in terms of scheduling.

Select community speakers

The community members whom the DMI Working Group engaged during Phase
2 (police-community reconciliation) may be good choices for speaking at the call-in.
These “community moral voices” should be people the specific call-in candidates will
listen to. To be more specific, two or three of the following figures should speak at
the call-in:
• Family members affected by the drug market, the incarceration of a family member,
or the violence directed at a family member
• Convicted or formerly incarcerated people (who may work as formal outreach
workers or street outreach workers or may be involved in less formal ways)
• Respected local, grassroots leaders (often not elected or appointed officials but
grandmothers, neighborhood elders, barbers, coaches, or clergy)
• Other speakers, including those directly affected by addiction or drug
market-related violence

45
 Drug Market Intervention: An Implementation Guide

Know Your Speakers

Before inviting a community representative to speak at the gathering, look into the
person’s background and reputation. The person may have seemed like a good community
representative in earlier meetings, but he or she might have a bad reputation that will sink
any good message the person might convey.
– Risco Mention-Lewis, Deputy Police Commissioner, Suffolk County, New York

Select law enforcement speakers

Law enforcement speakers are typically high-ranking executives from key agencies. To
be more specific, two or three of the following figures should speak at the call-in:
• The chief of police or area commander
• U.S. attorney and/or district attorney
• Drug investigators
• Probation and parole authorities
The speakers must be able to talk to the call-in candidates in a respectful, business-like
tone. The call-in is not about threatening or scaring
The call-in is not about threatening or participants. It is about giving them information
scaring participants. It is about giving that will have important consequences for their lives.
them information that will have important Ideally, the call-in is also about speaking directly to
consequences for their lives. the neighborhood history and saying, “We know that
what we’ve done hasn’t worked in the past, but the
dealing needs to stop. We don’t want to put you in
prison, so we are going to tell you ahead of time exactly what will happen if the dealing
doesn’t stop.”

Select a social service speaker

Usually no more than one social service representative speaks at a call-in. When
choosing a speaker, the DMI Working Group should look for someone who has the
following:
• An engaging personality
• Experience working with people who have a history of incarceration or who have
backgrounds similar to those of the call-in candidates
• The desire and ability to act as a single point of contact for all services for the
call-in candidates

46
 Phase 4: Call-In Preparation and Execution

The DMI partnership typically works with the social service speaker to ensure his
or her message is effective (see “Convey the social service message” on page 56). The
National Network recommends that the speaker bring appropriate intake forms to the
call-in, along with cards bearing a single phone number for all social services.

Establish call-in location

Site Selection Theory
To enhance the call-in’s effect, holding the call-in at a nonthreatening place of civic
importance may be better. While many call-ins have been held in courtrooms, that setting
might send an overly harsh message to the call-in candidates.

Instead, holding the call-in at a park building, library, or community center may signal the
participants’ membership in society, not their alienation from it. The use of a noncriminal
justice site changes the tone of the meeting and may help them think of themselves as
citizens, not outcasts. The idea is to encourage them to become upstanding citizens. These
people are so alienated from law enforcement and the state that respectful treatment has a
bigger impact on them than on other citizens.
– Tracey Meares, Yale Law School

The call-in location should be physically secured and have a separate entrance for
call-in candidates and other participants so that they can be admitted in an orderly
manner, any disruptive individuals can be kept out, and the safety of all attendees can be
ensured.
For security purposes, DMI communities have often selected courtrooms as call-in
locations. However, some communities have made an effort to foster perceptions of
the strategy’s legitimacy by using other, nonthreatening locations—places of civic
importance such as community centers, park buildings, or museums (which can also
meet security criteria).
The Working Group should ask that candidates arrive early to the call-in, and the
location should have a place for checking them in before they enter the presentation
area. Law enforcement typically searches candidates for weapons; this is best done away
from speakers and other participants arriving.

47
Drug Market Intervention: An Implementation Guide

The location should have a staging area, such as a side room or a lobby. This will allow
the Working Group to assemble candidates prior to the call-in so they can enter all at
once. A staging room will also provide a reception area for them to meet with speakers
after the call-in has finished.

Deliver invitations to dealers and influentials

Once the Working Group has selected the call-in candidates, it should deliver formal
call-in invitations to the candidates and their influentials. If the Working Group cannot
locate a call-in candidate, an influential may be able to pass the invitation along.
Typically, a law enforcement officer, a social service provider, and a community member
visit the dealer and his or her influential at home to deliver the invitation face to face. A
respectful letter of invitation, signed by a senior law enforcement official, informs the
candidates of several key points:
• The police are aware of their drug dealing.
• The candidates must stop immediately.
• They are requested to attend the call-in.
• They will not be arrested there.
• They may bring along someone who is important to them.
Different communities use different leverage to convince candidates to attend the call-
in. In Hempstead, New York, the invitation letter from the district attorney and chief
of police clearly stated that candidates who did not attend the call-in would be arrested.
Other sites rely on pressure through probation or parole. Still others rely on the leverage
of the influential to get the candidate to the call-in.
Even with a letter from the chief of police stating that the candidate will not be arrested,
candidates and their influentials may still suspect a trap. Community and social service
representatives are best placed to persuade candidates that the invitation is genuine, if
they are present during its delivery.
Contacting call-in candidates and influentials can be time-consuming. Repeated visits
and reminders are often necessary, so partners must allow sufficient time for this step. In
practice, the majority of candidates notified in this manner attend the call-in.
See appendix D on page 70 for an example of an invitation letter from a district
attorney and chief of police to call-in candidates.

48
 Phase 4: Call-In Preparation and Execution

Methods of delivery
High Point, North Carolina
In High Point, community members help deliver invitations to the call-in. We take letters from the chief of police and deliver them, in
person, to the invitees. For safety, we are accompanied by police officers, but we do the talking.
We try to deliver the letters in the presence of the invitees’ family members or other influentials, and we tell the invitees they can bring
those influentials to the call-in.
At the house, we tell invitees they won’t be arrested at the meeting but that we, the community, have something important to tell
them, so they should come.
– Pastor Sherman Mason, High Point Community Against Violence
Hempstead, New York
The delivery team typically consisted of two members of the district attorney’s office, one police officer, and one community member.
There were always at least four people together making the delivery.
The team found it difficult to track down the call-in candidates. Fortunately, some members of the community would call and tell us at
what street corner we could find a candidate at a particular moment, and the team would hurry over and make the delivery. Invitations
were delivered five days before the scheduled gathering.
The DMI team was trying to invite 18 candidates to the gathering. Of the 13 to whom the delivery team personally handed an invita-
tion, all came. Of the five the delivery team could not find, none came, even though in each case the team had handed an invitation to
candidates’ family members and asked them to pass it along.
Teams delivering invitations should do the following:
• Be polite when delivering letters.
• Don’t pound on the door like the police.
• Approach as a neighbor would.
– Risco Mention-Lewis, Deputy Police Commissioner, Suffolk County, New York
Rockford, Illinois
The DMI team identified 12 dealers in its targeted drug market. The seven violent dealers, who would not be invited to the call-in, were
arrested in a sweep. The next day, pastors and police began the process of delivering call-in invitations to the five dealers who would be
given a second chance.
The chief of police and his team had asked whether we local pastors knew the call-in candidates and who might be influential in their
lives. We were asked to contact the candidates or their influentials and hand-deliver a letter from the chief.
After some research with the police and the community, the delivery team identified influentials for all five candidates. A few days
before the scheduled call-in, delivery began. Typically, a pastor or other community representative would go into the community, along
with a police officer, to deliver an invitation to either a candidate or one of his influentials.
In one case, we couldn’t find the candidate at any of his known addresses. We went around the neighborhood, hung out, and in two
days got word of his whereabouts. The police officer and I drove to Beloit, Wisconsin [almost 20 miles away], found him, and delivered
the letter. That candidate took advantage of the invitation and came back for the call-in.
Another pastor making deliveries found a candidate’s mother and told her how important it was for her son to take advantage of the
offer. She immediately called her son, who was 335 miles away in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The son drove back to Rockford immediately.
Having pastors, trusted figures, participate in delivering the call-in invitations added legitimacy to the process. The cops said candidates
wouldn’t be arrested at the call-in, and the pastors said so, too.
– Rev. K. Edward Copeland, Pastor, New Zion Missionary Baptist Church

49
Drug Market Intervention: An Implementation Guide

Executing the call-in

Executing the call-in is also somewhat flexible. Cities script their call-ins and arrange
speaker order variously. However, appropriate tone and staging are important, and the
core message of the call-in must remain intact. An experienced technical assistance team
can assist new DMI communities to ensure integrity of staging and messaging.

Normalizing Relations
In Raleigh, we refer to call-in candidates as “brothers and sisters,” and we avoid calling them
“offenders.”

We also arranged for everyone at the gathering to eat pizza together at the end of the
meeting. This was done to normalize relations between everyone present.

Our goal is not to tear down these call-in candidates but to build them up.
– Kristen Rosselli, Community Services Director, City of Raleigh, North Carolina

Use appropriate staging

Simply holding the call-in carries great meaning. Law enforcement, community figures,
and social service providers rarely appear together before dealers and speak with one
voice. Their joint appearance sends a powerful signal that things have changed.
The call-in should be respectful. While rejecting candidates’ behavior, the DMI
partnership embraces them as people and community members. The tone of the call-in
should strongly convey the following:
• The partnership regards the candidates as rational and responsible.
• The partnership expects them to make good use of the information provided.
• Any law enforcement consequences that might follow for noncompliance are strictly
business and not meant personally.
The length of the call-in is best kept to an hour and should not exceed 90 minutes.
The DMI Working Group typically prepares an agenda that determines who speaks
and in what order. In some call-ins, police and prosecutors speak first, followed by social
services and the community. In others, community members speak first, followed by law
enforcement and social services.

50
 Phase 4: Call-In Preparation and Execution

Because the call-in is a highly structured event designed to convey specific messages, the
project manager and the Working Group should collaborate to provide talking points
to people who will speak at the call-in.

Best Practices in Call-In Staging and Logistics

Memphis, Tennessee
We pumped up the drama at our call-in. Law enforcement showed pictures of dealers who were indicted and told how many years of
imprisonment they were facing from federal and state charges. They emphasized, “This could be you.”
The drama grew when a candidate said two of the dealers pictured were her husband and her brother.
We also showed videos of each candidate selling drugs. That made denial pretty difficult. The presentation sent a powerful message to
candidates and the community.
– Richard Janikowski, Associate Professor, Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Memphis
Hempstead, New York
At the site of the call-in, I met the candidates in a separate room first. I collected their contact information and that of the influentials
they brought along. An ex-offender was also in that room to keep the candidates calm. Then I escorted them into the main call-in
meeting room.
The “brothers and sisters” (call-in candidates) were seated in the middle of a large room at the African American Museum. Community
members sat behind and around them for support. The candidates faced the featured speakers and various [poster] displays about
arrested drug dealers, showing [photos of] them in their orange prison jumpsuits.
Excitement over the event was so high that attendees began arriving at the site two hours before scheduled start time.
– Risco Mention-Lewis, Deputy Police Commissioner, Suffolk County
Rockford, Illinois
We decided to meet at St. Paul Lutheran Church, which was in the target neighborhood and was known as a safe place and a church
that cared for the neighborhood. We used its gym as well as other, smaller rooms.
First, we brought everyone—law enforcement, other government representatives, social services, community members, and the call-
in candidates and their family members or other influentials—together in the gym. At that point, the candidates were mixed in with
the community. We had community members, including affected mothers, stand up and speak about the impact of the drug market.
Next, the candidates were asked to move to a different room to hear the law enforcement message. Until then, they had not been
identified in front of the community. Now they had to stand up in front of 300 revved up community members and walk to the law
enforcement meeting. It had to be one of the longest walks they ever took.
While the candidates were meeting with law enforcement, city service representatives (e.g., police, fire, alderman, and the mayor)
stayed in the gym and held a spontaneous meeting with the community, talking about fixing up the neighborhood.
When the candidates left the law enforcement presentation, they were all crying from shame. They next met with social services in yet
another room.
When they emerged from their social services meeting, some of them encountered community members who were still on-site. Those
community members cheered them on and said, “If you do right, we’ll stand behind you.”
– Rev. K. Edward Copeland, Pastor, New Zion Missionary Baptist Church

51
 Drug Market Intervention: An Implementation Guide

Call-in rehearsal
Once the Working Group has identified the speakers, the moderator, and the location for
the call-in, the group should schedule a rehearsal and go over previously developed talking
points for each speaker. DMI is an intervention based on information and messaging; if
the messaging goes off script, the strategy may be not only ineffective but also damaging.
Disrespectful and challenging messages can provoke call-in candidates to act out after the
meeting. For this reason, the National Network recommends preparation and a rehearsal
before the call-in. The National Network strongly recommends that the moderator not
permit anyone to speak at a call-in if they did not attend the rehearsal.
The project manager or an appointed moderator typically runs the rehearsal and
provides constructive feedback to each speaker. Sharing feedback with one another is
also useful for speakers.
The agenda for the rehearsal outlines the order and
DMI is an intervention based on
the time limit for each speaker; the same agenda can
information and messaging; if the
be used for the call-in. For a sample rehearsal agenda,
messaging goes off script, the strategy may
see appendix E.
be not only ineffective but also damaging.
Ideally, the rehearsal takes place within one week of
the call-in (often the day before), in the same location, with all speakers present. The
speakers should recite their talking points as if they were speaking before a live audience
of call-in candidates and practice keeping to their assigned time limits.
The rehearsal allows participants to offer constructive criticism and feedback to each
other to ensure all messages are clear, concise, respectful, and effective. It also allows
speakers to learn the messages of others, avoid repetition, and enhance community
building for the partnership. Each speaker can receive or prepare a set of talking points
in advance of the rehearsal. These can be customized and adapted to local conditions,
but maintaining the core themes is important.

Convey law enforcement message

DMI law enforcement representatives attempt to reattach the call-in candidates to the
community and to explain that because law enforcement has already built solid cases,
the candidates face a near certainty of serious legal repercussions the next time they deal
drugs. If candidates step back from dealing drugs, they can avoid arrest and punishment
and take advantage of the help the community and social services have to offer. If they
continue dealing drugs, law enforcement will file their banked cases, and the dealers will
face the legal consequences.
52
 Phase 4: Call-In Preparation and Execution

The Power of Tone

The DMI team may have to coach the law enforcement representatives who will speak at
the call-in not to admonish the candidates but instead to convey this simple message:
“You can do better; we hope you accept help; your involvement in drug dealing hurts the
community and must stop; and serious consequences will follow if you continue dealing
drugs or if you commit a violent crime.”

At the gathering, we strengthened the law enforcement message by having a public

defender speak after law enforcement. Earlier, we had worked hard to convince him of our
sincerity. He told the call-in candidates that the DMI process was sincere and worthy of
their trust.
– Kristen Rosselli, Community Services Director, City of Raleigh, North Carolina

It is important that law enforcement speak with respect, avoid admonishing offenders
collectively or individually, and avoid any derogatory terms. Feedback from call-
in candidates suggests that they are surprised, and strongly influenced, when law
enforcement treats them with respect.
Law enforcement speakers should deliver the following messages about respect and change:
• Law enforcement respects you. Call-in candidates and many community members
believe law enforcement dislikes them personally for illegitimate reasons, such as
racial prejudice. Speakers should say clearly that they have no personal dislike for
the candidates and that they, like the community, are trying to save their lives, keep
them out of prison, and help them succeed. Law enforcement speakers can address
particular false narratives: e.g., that law enforcement would not be out of work without
drug cases and that enforcement targets areas with severe violence, not people of color.
• Law enforcement would like to change. In some DMI projects, law enforcement
speakers acknowledge that what they have done in the past has not worked.
They may admit that some policing has been inappropriate and that even well-
intentioned policies like heavy drug enforcement have caused inadvertent damage
to communities, such as family breakup, the social and psychological cost of
incarceration, and the burden of widespread criminal records. This message subverts
not only the community narrative that law enforcement seeks to harm them but also
the law enforcement norm that enforcement is in itself a good thing.

53
Drug Market Intervention: An Implementation Guide

• The dealers could be in jail now. The cases exist, and the warrants could be signed.
Law enforcement would prefer not to have to lock dealers up, would like them to
stay in the community, and would like them to succeed.
• Dealers are entirely in control of what happens next. If they stop dealing, the
banked cases will not be activated. If they continue dealing, the banked cases will be.

Message Received
Law enforcement’s willingness not to act on existing cases seemed to make a profound
impression on the dealers’ families and other community members. Dealers’ mothers and
grandmothers cheered both the community’s and law enforcement’s messages. Dealers
were given an opportunity to meet the social service coordinator to assess their various
needs. Most dealers signed up for services the same day.

The call-ins have been electrifying events with police officers being moved profoundly, drug
dealers testifying to their gratitude for a second chance, community figures speaking of
both accountability and redemption, and family members speaking strongly and plainly to
their children.
Source: Kennedy and Wong 2009

Next, the law enforcement speakers should present their serious messages to the candidates:
• Law enforcement will no longer tolerate drug dealing and violence in the target area.
• We have built ironclad cases on all the call-in candidates.
• Candidates must stop dealing immediately or expect certain arrest.
• We invite candidates to take advantage of social services, which the DMI partnership
has organized especially to help them.
• We would like candidates to succeed and stay out of prison; candidates are in control
of their own destiny.
Law enforcement speakers reinforce their message by displaying audio, video,
photographs, and documents that will help convict the candidates if they continue
dealing. This typically includes pictures or videos of the candidates in the act of selling
drugs; pictures of the houses and street corners where transactions take place; pictures
of arrested drug dealers whom the candidates might know with their prison sentences
displayed; binders with other information the police have about each candidate; and
even unsigned arrest warrants for the candidates. Such visual displays produce a
powerful effect on call-in candidates.

54
 Phase 4: Call-In Preparation and Execution

It is important that law enforcement not lecture. As tempting as doing so is, broad
admonishments (e.g., dealers should make good choices and will have to want to
change) are not meaningful. Law enforcement should stay focused and businesslike.

Convey the community moral voice

The community speakers typically deliver the following key messages to the
call-in candidates:
• There is no justification for your dealing. History, racism, oppression, and neglect
do not make it acceptable.
• The community needs the drug market to close. Many candidates genuinely
believe the community does not care about the drug market, interpreting community
silence as approval or lack of interest. Therefore, when the community expresses its
rejection of the drug market, it undermines the candidates’ justifications.
• You are valuable and important to us. Many offenders feel neglected and
disregarded. They need to understand that law enforcement and the community
want them to succeed.
• We would like to help you. The community demands that candidates stop dealing
but also offers to help them if it can.
• We have great hopes for you. This should be a clear, positive message that even
seasoned offenders can accomplish important things. This message is best delivered
by ex-offenders who have turned their lives around.

Meaningful Moment
At the call-in, nothing’s more effective than the moment when the community says, “We
care about you, and we’re sick of what you’re doing. Stop.” You hit them with the truth, right
between the eyes. This is the toughest and most dynamic moment.

Call-in candidates are used to hearing law enforcement tell them not to commit crimes.
However, they are surprised when they hear the community speaking out. We tell them,
“You are part of our community, and we love you, but we demand that you stop. We are
partners with these law enforcement representatives, and we authorize our new partners
to take you out of our community if you don’t quit. You have a choice: end up in a box in
the ground, behind bars, or in the arms of your community.”
– Jim Summey, Executive Director, High Point Community Against Violence

55
Drug Market Intervention: An Implementation Guide

Press Conference
After the call-in, we held a press conference in a location away from where the call-in was
held. Reporters tend to want human interest stories, so they asked if they could interview
the call-in candidates. However, we decided not to arrange such interviews or release
the candidates’ names. We didn’t want to do anything that would hurt their chances at
rehabilitation.
– Richard Janikowski, Associate Professor,
Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Memphis

Convey the social service message

The social service message is the third vital part of the DMI strategy. If call-in
candidates take advantage of help and start leading legitimate lives, they are less likely
to return to drug dealing. If they reject social services even after the call-in’s sincere offer
of help, they undermine the narrative that justifies dealing, and they no longer have an
excuse for criminality.
The social services representative typically delivers the following key messages to the
call-in candidates:
• We see the victims of your drug dealing. You are hurting the community. You are
killing people.
• We are here to help you. It is up to you whether you take advantage of what we have
to offer.
• Stop selling drugs. Get help. We want to offer you assistance with education,
housing, employment, food and clothing, drug and alcohol treatment, and
transportation. Here’s how you get this help.
Social service providers should speak in plain English about what they can do for
dealers. Professional jargon such as intake assessments, referrals, and case management
mean very little to them.

56
Phase 5: Follow-Through and Maintenance
…… Carry out enforcement promises

…… Follow up on social services

…… Keep the market closed

…… Help dealers change

…… Assess outcomes

Following Through
Credibility is critical. DMI will fail if what is promised to the candidates is not delivered. This
goes for both services and arrest if rules are not followed.
Source: Hipple and McGarrell 2009

Carry out law enforcement promises

After the call-in, the law enforcement operational team (usually consisting of local
police, sheriff ’s department, state police, ATF, FBI, DEA, a local prosecutor, a federal
prosecutor, probation, and parole) must be ready to pursue a range of actions. They
should encourage community residents to call the police about any suspected dealing
in and around the former drug market. In addition, police typically continue to
attempt drug buys in the target area to discover any dealing there. Police must respond
immediately to any information the community offers. They are not only carrying
out their promise of enforcement to the call-in candidates but also carrying out their
promise of support to the community.
The law enforcement operational team must swiftly activate the banked case of any
call-in candidate who reoffends, based on the criteria the DMI Working Group defined
ahead of time (see “Cases to bank” on page 40). Prosecutors should give the cases
priority treatment. The DMI Working Group should make every effort to publicize
such prosecutions and the resulting sentences within DMI target areas to deter others.

57
Drug Market Intervention: An Implementation Guide

Law enforcement should not expect that all or even most call-in candidates will
reoffend and require prosecution. The majority of candidates do not reoffend. In High
Point’s five DMI neighborhoods, for example, only 26 percent of all call-in candidates
were eventually prosecuted for their original offense.

Follow up on social services

Social service providers must make every effort to help the offenders invited to the call-
in. It is not always possible to provide immediate results, such as employment; however,
the social service representatives should remember that “if you are unable to respond to
the immediate needs of the candidates, you will likely ‘lose’ them. That is, word will get
out that you did not follow through with your end of the bargain.”18

Extra Benefit
In our first DMI area in Rockford, years after the call-in, there is still no open drug market.
In addition, the overall condition of the neighborhood has remained at an improved level,
and there is even some revitalization under way.
– Rev. K. Edward Copeland, Pastor, New Zion Missionary Baptist Church, Rockford, Illinois

After the call-in, the Working Group can take the following steps, developed by the
Urban League of Rhode Island and based on the DMI experience in Providence, to
ensure the providers effectively carry out the DMI social service offer:
• Meet with the call-in candidates to complete a standard intake form, obtain current
contact information, and make specific arrangements for follow-up (if this was not
done at the call-in).
• Maintain an open and honest relationship. State clearly what providers expect of the
candidate (e.g., timely attendance).
• Do not make any promises that providers cannot keep (e.g., job placement).
• Establish an open and honest relationship with the candidate’s influentials and
obtain current contact information. Encourage them to become involved, if possible.

18. Hipple and McGarrell, “BJA Drug Market Intervention Implementation Guide.”

58
 Phase 5: Follow-Through and Maintenance

• Establish biweekly meetings to discuss the candidate’s development, address issues

that arise, and enhance the services provided.
• Provide information to collaborating law enforcement agencies regarding the
candidate’s development.

Keep the market closed

When implemented with fidelity, DMI has a history of shutting down overt drug
markets quickly and keeping them closed indefinitely with no evidence of displacement
of closed markets.
In High Point’s West End, the drug market vanished literally overnight. Street corner
and drug house activity, drive-through buying, and overt prostitution simply stopped.
The character of the neighborhood changed immediately. Residents returned to their
yards, children began playing outside again, homeowners began to take care of their
properties, and many other signs of transformation emerged.
In fact, police and residents in some DMI sites have observed a diffusion of benefits
to neighboring areas where active players toned down violence to avoid attracting law
enforcement attention.19

Follow-Up
We complete a client need sheet to capture whether call-in candidates need a job, housing,
transportation, education, etc. We don’t promise they will receive all those outcomes, but
we help them navigate the process and get through the red tape.

Some candidates refuse to change, but social services should persevere to make the
changes they can.
– Gretta Bush, President, High Point Community Against Violence

There are several key elements to keeping a drug market closed, including strengthening
communication and trust between the police and the community, keeping in touch
with call-in candidates, implementing priority responses and innovations in the police
department, and encouraging community stakeholders.

19. Corsaro and McGarrell, Evaluation of Nashville DMI.

59
Drug Market Intervention: An Implementation Guide

Police-community communication and trust

The successful and long-term closure of an overt drug market requires, more than
anything else, that a police department strengthen communication and trust with
residents of the area where the market is located.
For the first few weeks after a call-in, police command staff should be the point of contact
for residents. Five to six weeks after the call-in, beat officers with good communication
skills can uphold lines of communication, provided command staff has introduced them
to key residents. When one officer replaces another in a DMI neighborhood, they should
make a full transfer of knowledge and community connections.
Finding the residents best suited to be the police department’s points of contact is not
difficult. They are the residents who call the police, speak at community meetings, and
have “No Trespassing” signs on their well-kept front yards. Police departments can run
regular call-dispatch searches to determine who from a DMI neighborhood has been
making frequent calls for service and what type of service these residents have requested.
In addition, a police department should reach out to residents whenever it has
neighborhood-relevant news to report. This may involve a recent arrest, the outcome of
a “knock-and-talk,” or other types of police activity in the area. Contact methods include
meeting directly with key residents, distributing newsletters or fliers, attending monthly
neighborhood meetings, and organizing shared celebrations of success.

Police responses and innovations

As part of carrying out enforcement promises, detectives should review each Part I
crime in a DMI neighborhood the day after it occurs to determine whether it is related
to drug activity in the area. If it is drug-related, the police should give the incident
immediate priority.

Aim for Accountability

Send undercover officers and confidential informants regularly to try and buy drugs.
Enlist the services of researchers and/or crime analysts to evaluate the impact of DMI. Jim
Summey, executive director of the High Point Community Against Violence, talks about
a circle of accountability whereby local neighborhood residents hold the police and
themselves accountable for maintaining the quality of life within the neighborhood.
Source: Hipple and McGarrell 2009

60
 Phase 5: Follow-Through and Maintenance

Police must respond promptly to any resident complaints about drug-related activity in
the neighborhood. The DMI Working Group should coordinate with 911 and other
public offices to ensure they quickly pass community residents’ concerns to the police.
During the maintenance phase of DMI, the traditional approach to handling a drug
complaint, such as referring the call to a centralized drug squad or undertaking an
undercover investigation, can be completely ineffective and can look to both residents
and dealers as if nothing is happening, often for weeks or months. In addition, residents
often do not understand the level of scrutiny required ahead of a response. If the
response takes too long, overt dealing and related crime can resurface quickly, and the
damage is done. Consequently, some DMI sites have altered their dispatch procedures
so that law enforcement treats any drug-related call in a DMI site as top priority,
requiring immediate attention.
In addition, DMI sites have come to understand that there should be an immediately
visible response. For example, police can dispatch a uniformed officer immediately after
receiving a complaint to conduct a knock-and-talk at the reported address. The officer
may say something like, “We‘ve just received information about drug-dealing activity at
this house. Are you aware of the recent Drug Market Intervention in this neighborhood?
Here is a flier about it.” Another action police can take is leaving a marked police car in
front of the location. The point is to show a rapid and evident response.

Program Maintenance
Our DMI executive board meets monthly with a police representative, a city attorney,
community businesspeople who give financial support, probation and parole
representatives, members of High Point Community Against Violence, and some grassroots
members. The team holds a separate monthly meeting with fraternal organizations, jail
ministry, community volunteers, interested businesses, and the local employment office.
We understand we can’t make High Point drug-free, but we can make drug dealing difficult
and make the streets safer.

We also work with homeowners and landlords. Homeowners can be reached through
neighborhood groups and associations. If the area consists mostly of rental housing, it
helps to work with landlords and the housing authority to keep them from allowing or
ignoring drug activity on their property.
– Gretta Bush, President, High Point Community Against Violence

61
Drug Market Intervention: An Implementation Guide

Acting in this immediate and visible way demonstrates to residents that law enforcement
will respond to their complaints, and it may encourage them to keep calling. Furthermore,
this action puts dealers on notice, and they will likely quit or go covert. If that doesn’t work,
law enforcement can deploy longer term investigations and the like.
Several particular policing practices and innovations that can help keep drug markets
shut include the following:
• A strong presence to inform drug buyers. From the moment of the call-in, if not
before, dealers in the area will understand that the drug market is closed. However,
it may take a strong police presence of five to six weeks to make buyers aware of the
change. Public notices advertising the closure of the drug market can be helpful. The
police department in Hempstead, New York, deployed its license plate reader in the
former drug market area during late-night and early-morning hours—times of high
drug activity. The chief of police sent notification letters to vehicle owners found
driving through the neighborhood in cars registered outside the local zip code.
• Reverse stings. In some jurisdictions, police will pose as dealers, “sell” to drive-
through buyers, and publicize the operation and any arrests through the media.
• In-house information sharing. Police should keep each other informed about the
DMI neighborhood. Methods include posting new details about the neighborhood
on a bulletin board in the roll-call room, regularly reviewing crime statistics for
the neighborhood, and using collaboration software (accessible through patrol car
computers) to share information and maps about DMI developments.
• Informant compensation. Police can pay informants a premium for identifying the
dealers most active in the DMI target area.
• New accountability measures. After the call-in, there will likely be a decline in
arrests, search warrants, and seizures, so the department may need to find new ways
to account for narcotics officers’ time and ways to reward them. This can include
valuing narcotics arrests and seizures connected to the most violent individuals and
groups rather than sheer size or street value of seizures.

Role of community stakeholders

Community stakeholders typically include residents, religious groups, foundations,
crime watch groups, landlords, and owners of local businesses.

62
 Phase 5: Follow-Through and Maintenance

Community members perform two key tasks to keep the drug market closed:
1. Continue spreading the message that drug dealing is no longer tolerated in the
neighborhood by distributing newsletters, posters, and organizing community
meetings and celebrations.
2. Endorse high quality-of-life standards for the neighborhood.
City agencies can help community stakeholders carry out those tasks in several ways:
• The local housing authority can include DMI information in its welcome package
for new residents, explicitly alerting them to the fact that they are now living in a
neighborhood where overt drug dealing is not tolerated.
• The police department can compile a weekly report to inform city inspectors which
houses need to be boarded up, where street lights are not working, where trash needs
to be collected, or where graffiti has to be removed.
• The city manager can instruct all city departments to respond immediately to any
police requests for service in a DMI area.

Help dealers change

A designated member of the DMI Working Group, usually the social service
representative, manages communication and follow-up with call-in candidates. This
representative’s task is to ensure that call-in candidates who seek help actually receive the
assistance the DMI partnership has promised. This person can also inform all call-in
candidates about the success stories, or the arrests, of their peers. Experience has shown
that former dealers who succeed in transitioning from a life of crime usually prefer to
keep police at arm’s length during this transitional stage in their life, so the social service
representative is almost always the best person to keep contact with dealers.
Aside from immediately following up on the call-in’s offer of help from social services,
the DMI partnership must consider the longer-term issue of helping former drug
dealers turn their lives around. The experience to date has been mixed. Some dealers
succeed; some fail. In some communities, the majority of dealers have not moved into
legitimate work, have returned to dealing, and have been arrested; in others, nearly all
have done well.
The most successful approach seems to involve ex-offender mentors working with the
dealers. In addition to the regular menu of services, the Daniel Brooks initiative in
High Point, North Carolina, includes a church-based ex-offenders’ group that matches

63
Drug Market Intervention: An Implementation Guide

mentors with the dealers. Similarly, the Council for Thought and Action (COTA)
in Hempstead, New York, provides collective support, mentoring, access to job
opportunities, and a chance to work with others for the betterment of the community.
Most dealers in programs like these go on to work regular jobs.
Failure on the part of the call-in candidates does not mean DMI failure. The
transformation of the community is the primary measure of success. A community must
look at improvements in safety and quality of life for evidence that DMI has worked.

Best Practices in Helping Dealers Change

Hempstead, New York
In Hempstead, the Council of Thought and Action (COTA) is working to set new community norms against crime; to
move former offenders to success; and to reset relationships between the community, offenders, and law enforcement.
We called the day after the gathering “Day 1.” Starting then, we met with the brothers and sisters (call-in candidates)
every day for three to four months. Then we switched to every two weeks.
First, we had to get beyond their anger. Then, we had to help them work through their embarrassment.
To help them change, we talk to all agencies that have control over the person. We have a direct link to the social service
provider team, so we can help the brothers and sisters get what they need. We also have the full support of the Nassau
County District Attorney’s Office.
Even months after the gathering, if a candidate commits a new crime or probation or parole violation, he should be
arrested right away.
One of our brothers had been coming to follow-up meetings and staying out of trouble for months. Then he offended.
When a judge learned he had been through DMI, he sent the candidate to jail for a year.
We corresponded while he was in jail. When he got out, he came back to us. It’s all about personal relationships.
– Risco Mention-Lewis, Deputy Police Commissioner, Suffolk County
Raleigh, North Carolina
We celebrate the call-in candidates’ successes. In our periodic newsletters, we write about their good news, and we have
held community dinners that included the presentation of trophies to “brothers and sisters” who made progress in DMI
follow-up activities.
– Kristen Rosselli, Community Services Director, City of Raleigh

Assess outcomes
Several months after the call-in and after immediate follow-up activities, the Working
Group should assess the DMI effort. The group may also consider forming a research
partnership with a local college or university that can conduct a more rigorous scholarly
evaluation of the long-term effectiveness of the intervention.

64
 Phase 5: Follow-Through and Maintenance

The Working Group can gain an informal understanding and demonstrate the
effectiveness of their effort by considering the following types of questions:
• Was the overt drug market closed and kept closed?
• Have crime and disorder decreased in the area?
• Has there been an improvement in community-police relations?
• Are there observable improvements in the neighborhood where the drug market
was located?
• Should anything in the DMI process be done differently next time?
• What market should be addressed next?
Many DMI sites have gained valuable understanding of their interventions by working
with research partners to design long-term inquiries evaluating the capacity of DMI to
reduce crime and disorder surrounding overt drug markets.
Such evaluations have measured the effects of DMI on a variety of outcomes, including
“violent crime (the aggregated number of homicide, forcible rape, robbery, and
aggravated assault incidents), property crime (the sum of burglaries, larcenies, and
motor vehicle thefts), illegal drug possession offenses, drug equipment offenses (the
monthly number of charges for drug-paraphernalia and related crimes), and total calls
for service.”20 These evaluations can provide important insight about the following:
• Trajectory of the overt drug market over time
• Trajectory of the change in violent and drug crime over time
• Displacement of violent or drug crime to other areas
• Shifts in the form of the drug market (i.e., to other than overt)
• Perceptions of law enforcement and the community toward each other
• Perceptions of law enforcement and the community toward DMI
In cities where research partners have focused a formal study on DMI results, the
reports have lent considerable evidence-based weight to the legitimacy of the DMI
approach at large.

20. Braga and Weisburd, “‘Pulling Levers’ Focused Deterrence Strategies.”

65
Drug Market Intervention: An Implementation Guide

Conclusion
The National Network for Safe Communities continues its work to strengthen
and develop the Drug Market Intervention. For nearly 10 years, this approach has
eliminated overt drug markets and reduced violence and community disorder in a range
of cities across the nation, and it continues to evolve, grow, and expand in its usefulness.
DMI allows a broad partnership of community members, law enforcement, and social
service providers to work together and directly engage with the few people driving an
overt drug market, to give dealers a clear message that the dealing must stop, to provide
them the information they need to avoid legal consequences, and to offer them help.
Experience has shown that when the nation’s most troubled communities are able to
form this partnership and articulate strong norms against drugs and violence, they are
consistently able to close overt drug markets and keep them closed.
Even where history and current practice have contributed to profound alienation and
damage between law enforcement and minority communities, the DMI process has
consistently revealed that there remains common ground and surprising reservoirs of
good will. With determination on both sides, that common ground can emerge, and
communities, law enforcement, and even dealers can do things that otherwise seemed
impossible.
The National Network believes DMI represents a workable way forward in preventing
harm in the U.S. communities most touched by overt drug markets and the violence
and disorder that accompany them. This work reduces violence and incarceration;
helps police do their job in a way that does not harm, and in fact strengthens, the
communities they serve; improves relationships between law enforcement and minority
communities; and supports these communities in reclaiming their voice about the way
they want to live. More and more cities nationwide are using DMI and adapting it to
address the problems that affect their most troubled communities.

66
Appendixes
A. Drug Market Intervention flow chart

67
Drug Market Intervention: An Implementation Guide

B. Sample letter to community

January 7, 2008
Dear members of the Village of Hempstead Community,
As the District Attorney of Nassau County and the Chief of Police for the Village of
Hempstead, we invite you to attend a meeting on January 8, 2008, at 6:30 p.m. on the
main floor of the African American Museum located at 110 North Franklin Street,
Hempstead, NY.
Over the course of the last year, the District Attorney’s Office and the Hempstead Police
Department have been conducting an extensive drug investigation on Terrace Avenue
and Bedell Street.
Many people who have been positively identified as selling drugs on the street are being
offered one final opportunity to avoid arrest and prosecution. In exchange for not
being arrested, they are required to attend the above community meeting at the African
American Museum on January 8, 2008, listen to the community’s message, and stop
selling drugs for good.
Street-level drug sales and violence must stop in the Village of Hempstead. We are
giving this group of people one last chance to hear the community’s message and one
last chance to stop selling drugs.
At this meeting we will show some of the evidence we have of their involvement in
criminal activity. If they continue to sell drugs following this meeting, they will be
arrested and prosecuted. If they stop selling drugs following this meeting, they will not
be arrested and will not be prosecuted.
Please attend this meeting to show support and commitment to ending the drug
dealing, to ending the violence, and to revitalizing the Village of Hempstead.
If you have any questions, please contact [name, job title] at [phone number]
or [e-mail address].
Sincerely,
Kathleen M. Rice Joseph Wing
DISTRICT ATTORNEY CHIEF OF POLICE
NASSAU COUNTY VILLAGE OF HEMPSTEAD

68
 Appendixes

C. Sample letter to dealers

Kathleen M. Rice
District Attorney
Office of the District Attorney
Nassau County
262 Old Country Road
Mineola, NY 11501
Telephone: [insert phone number]
December 13, 2007
John Doe
Terrace Avenue
Hempstead, NY 11550
Dear Mr. Doe,
As the District Attorney of Nassau County and the Chief of Police for the Village
of Hempstead, we are writing to let you know that your activities have come to our
attention. Specifically, after we conducted an extensive drug investigation on Terrace
Avenue and Bedell Street, you have been positively identified as selling drugs on the street.
Because of your activities, we invite you to a meeting on January 8, 2008, at 6:30 p.m. in the
Grand Meeting room of the African American Museum located at 110 North Franklin
Street, Hempstead, New York. Mr. Doe, you will not be arrested at this meeting. This
is not a trick. You may bring someone with you who is important to you, like a friend or
relative. We want you to see some of the evidence we have of your involvement in criminal
activity, and we want to give you the opportunity to stop before Hempstead Police Officers
are forced to take action. Again, you will not be arrested at this meeting.
If you do not attend this meeting, you will be arrested. Street-level drug sales and
violence have to stop in the Village of Hempstead. We are giving you one chance to hear
our message so that we are not forced to take action against you.
If you have any questions, please contact [name, job title] at [phone number]
or [e-mail address].
Sincerely,
Kathleen M. Rice Joseph Wing
DISTRICT ATTORNEY CHIEF OF POLICE
NASSAU COUNTY VILLAGE OF HEMPSTEAD

69
Drug Market Intervention: An Implementation Guide

D. Sample invitation to community meeting

Raleigh’s Drug Market Initiative Community Meeting Invitation
On Thursday, December 7th at 6:30 p.m., we invite you to participate in Raleigh’s
Drug Market Initiative meeting, to be held at Chavis Park Community Center. We
want to share information and stories with you about a new approach to eliminating
street-level drug dealing and the violence associated with it. We also want to hear your
questions, explore ideas, and identify ways each of us can play a meaningful and safe
role in creating a successful pilot project. This invitation provides you with background
information, an update on where we are today, and ideas on how can you help make this
initiative a success. We need your support and involvement.
Background
The Raleigh Police Department (RPD) is initiating a drug market pilot project based on
the highly successful High Point model. This new approach has a record of dramatically
improving many aspects of neighborhood life as it dismantles a dangerous street-level
drug market by: (1) using different law enforcement techniques, (2) involving the
community in a meaningful way, (3) standing together to take back our streets and keep
them safe, and (4) offering nonviolent offenders the opportunity and support to turn
around their lives.
On the national level, the National Urban League has selected this same model to pilot in
several larger cities, including Kansas City, Missouri, and Tucson, Arizona; their initiative
is called “Building Bridges.” The National Urban League has given Raleigh permission to
participate on the “Building Bridges” team.
Where We Are Today
Site Selection & Announcement: The pilot project will take place in and around one
street-level drug market in South East Raleigh; the first site RPD selected based on
a thorough data analysis process. For officer safety reasons, no information about the
location of the pilot project has been announced. Once the police operation is complete,
the pilot site location will be announced. Although only one site will be selected in the pilot
project, we expect a reduction in drug-related violence and crime in all surrounding drug
markets. If successful, a second site will be selected and implemented. As long as we are
successful, we will continue to move to other street-level drug market locations in the city.

70
 Appendixes

Favorable Support: Raleigh’s drug market pilot project continues to receive favorable
support from community members and organizations, including support from the South
East Raleigh Assembly’s Executive Committee and the Triangle Lost Generation Task
Force. In addition, the South East Raleigh Assembly’s Executive Team has identified
possible links to the Public Safety Issue Team’s upcoming CPTED (Crime Prevention
through Environmental Design) Initiative.
Competitive Bid Process for Services: The City is conducting a competitive Request
for Proposal (RFP) process for offender case management/resource coordination and
quality-of-life community mobilization services to support this initiative. The deadline
for submitting proposals is Friday, November 10th at 2 p.m. If you or your agency is
interesting in receiving a copy of the RFP, please contact [name, job title] at [phone
number] or [e-mail address].
How You Can Help Make This A Success
Save this date on your calendar and commit to attending this meeting—Thursday,
December 7th at 6:30 p.m., Chavis Park Community Center.
Come to this meeting with questions and ideas on how to make this successful, including:
How we can stand together to take back our streets from drug dealers;
How we can send a strong message that drug dealing will no longer be tolerated;
How we can compel the nonviolent dealers to accept the offer of support and assistance to
help them turn around their lives;
How we can create a network of support and resources around these nonviolent dealers to
help them succeed.
Identify a safe and meaningful role you can play in this initiative.
Contact [name of point of contact, name of police department] for more information
about this initiative. She can be reached at [phone number] or [e-mail address].
If you know others who are willing to participate, please extend this invitation to them.
We look forward to seeing you and hearing your ideas on Thursday, December 7th at
6:30 p.m., at the Chavis Park Community Center, which is located at 505 Martin Luther
King Jr. Boulevard.
Sincerely,
Chief Jane Perlov

71
Drug Market Intervention: An Implementation Guide

E. Sample agenda for call-in

Memphis Drug Market Intervention Program

An Operation Safe Community Initiative
Hosted at: Union Grove Baptist Church
2285 Frayser Blvd., Memphis, TN 38127
June 21, 2011 Call-In Notification Session

Introduction of the Frayser Drug David Pritchard, U.S. Attorney

Market Intervention Initiative Amy Weirich,
Shelby County District Attorney General
Overview of Law Director Toney C. Armstrong,
Enforcement’s Role Director of Police Services
Detective Terence Dabney,
MPD Organized Crime Unit
Voices from the Community Ronald Teamer, Frayser Resident
Jeanine Robinson, Frayser Resident
Reclaiming and Restoring Minister DeAndre Brown,
our Community Union Grove Baptist Church
Reverend Walter Smith,
Union Grove Baptist Church
Closing Derwin Pugh, University of Memphis, Center
for Community Criminology and Research
Contracts/Pre-Assessment University of Memphis, Center for Community
In-Take Criminology and Research
Service Provider’s Meet Economic Opportunity, Hopeworks,
and Greet Life Line to Success, Second Chance

72
 Appendixes

F. Sample press release

After a call-in, the DMI Working Group can share this information with the community in
the form of a press release, an op-ed piece, or on fliers.
Contact: [Name, phone number]
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: [Date]
[Example Title: Joint Community-Police Effort to Close Overt Drug Markets]
On [insert date], [number] individuals identified as drug dealers operating in
[jurisdiction] were called to a meeting to hear a message from members of their
community, law enforcement, and social service providers that the dealing is hurting
the community and must stop, that help is available for those who will take it, and that
there will be swift legal consequences for anybody continuing to deal in [jurisdiction]
from now on.
This meeting, known as a “call-in,” is part of [city]’s new Drug Market Intervention
(DMI) strategy. The idea behind the strategy is surprisingly simple: very few dealers
drive the chaos and disorder of an overt drug market. DMI identifies these dealers,
arrests those with a history of violent offending, and “banks”—builds but does not
prosecute—cases for nonviolent dealers. It brings together a partnership of community
leaders, dealers’ influential friends and family members, law enforcement officials, and
social service providers to communicate a message against dealing. This partnership tells
dealers that it cares for them but rejects their behavior. The banked case means that all
the dealers left on the street know ahead of time that if they are found dealing again,
law enforcement can arrest and prosecute them immediately. So warned, most will not
keep dealing, and many will avail themselves of services and take the community’s help.
Similar meetings have become business as usual in cities across the country. The
U.S. Department of Justice has actively promoted the meetings for the simple reason
that they have proven to eliminate overt drug markets rapidly and produce profound
reductions in violent and drug crime. The aim of DMI is to close overt drug markets
while reducing arrest and incarceration and strengthening relationships between the
police and community.
There are many reasons people may think this strategy will not work, but the record
now clearly shows that it does. More than a decade of experience demonstrates that
dealers do not want to be arrested and go to jail, that they will listen to their own

73
Drug Market Intervention: An Implementation Guide

community, that some will ask for help, and that in city after city the overt drug market
disappears. DMI’s first implementation in High Point, North Carolina, closed four of
the city’s most active overt drug markets, reduced violent and drug crime, and, most
important, allowed life to improve for community members.
The DMI strategy should not be mistaken as “hug a thug” or law enforcement offering
offenders a deal. Nobody in law enforcement would do that. Everybody involved
will do everything in their power to help dealers turn their lives around. However,
the intervention should be judged not on the success of individual dealers but on its
ability to accomplish the primary objectives: to close drug markets, reduce the use of
intrusive policing practices in [jurisdiction], transform neighborhoods, and allow law
enforcement to step back and the community to reclaim its voice in how it wants to live.

74
References
Alexander, M. 2010. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.
New York: New Press.
Boyum, D., and P. Reuter. 2005. An Analytic Assessment of U.S. Drug Policy.
Washington, DC: AEI Press.
Braga, Anthony A., and David l. Weisburd. 2012. “The Effects of ‘Pulling Levers’
Focused Deterrence Strategies on Crime.” Oslo: The Campbell Collaboration.
Brunson, R.K. 2007. “Police Don’t Like Black People: African American Young Men’s
Accumulated Police Experiences.” Criminology and Public Policy 6.
Corsaro, Nicholas, Rod K. Brunson, and Edmund F. McGarrell. 2009.
“Problem-Oriented Policing and Open-Air Drug Markets: Examining
the Rockford Pulling Levers Deterrence Strategy.” Crime & Delinquency.
doi:10.1177/0011128709345955.
Corsaro, Nicholas, Eleazer D. Hunt, Natalie K. Hipple, and Edmund F. McGarrell.
2012. “The Impact of Drug Market Pulling Levers Policing on Neighborhood
Violence: An Evaluation of the High Point Drug Market Intervention.” Criminology
and Public Policy 11 (2): 167–199. doi:10.1111/j.1745-9133.2012.00798.x.
Corsaro, Nicholas, and Edmund F. McGarrell. 2009. “An Evaluation of the Nashville
Drug Market Initiative (DMI) Pulling Levers Strategy.” Lansing, MA: Michigan
State University. http://www.nnscommunities.org/NashvilleEvaluation.pdf.
Graves, Kelly, Korrine Chiu, Kristen L. Di Luca, Terri L. Shelton, James M. Frabutt,
John Weil, et al. 2010. “Officially Off the Market: Evaluation of a Pulling Levers
Approach to Eliminating Open-Air Drug Markets in High Point, North Carolina.”
Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Criminology
(ASC) Annual Meeting, San Francisco, California, November 19, 2010.
http://citation. allacademic.com/meta/p431067_index.html.
Hipple, Natalie K., Nicholas Corsaro, and Edmund F. McGarrell. 2010. “The
High Point Drug Market Initiative: A Process and Impact Assessment.” East
Lansing, MI: Michigan State University. http://drugmarketinitiative.msu.edu/
HighPointMSUEvaluationPSN12.pdf.

75
Drug Market Intervention: An Implementation Guide

Hipple, Natalie K., and Edmund F. McGarrell. 2009. “Bureau of Justice Assistance
Drug Market Intervention Implementation Guide and Lessons Learned.”
Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Assistance. http://www.nnscommunities.org/
DMI-LessonsLearned2-1-2010.pdf.
Kennedy, David M. 2008. Deterrence and Crime Prevention: Reconsidering the Prospect of
Sanction. New York: Routledge.
Kennedy, David M., and Michael A. Friedrich. 2014. Custom Notifications:
Individualized Communication in the Group Violence Intervention. Washington, DC:
Office of Community Oriented Policing Services.
Kennedy, David M., and Sue-Lin Wong. 2009. The High Point Drug Market Intervention
Strategy. Washington, DC: Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. http://
ric-zai-inc.com/ric.php?page=detail&id=COPS-P166.
Lambert, B. 2009. “Street Known for Drugs is Getting Clean.” New York Times,
January 14. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/18/nyregion/long-
island/18terraceli.html?scp=1&sq=street%20known%20for%20drug%20crime%20
is%20getting%20clean&st=cse%25C2%25A0&_r=0.
MacCoun, R., and P. Reuter. 1992. “Are the Wages of Sin $30? Economic Aspects of
Street-Level Drug Dealing.” Crime and Delinquency 38:477–491.
Milkovits, A. 2007. “Closing Crack Highway.” The Providence Journal, March 10.
National Network for Safe Communities. 2013. Group Violence Intervention: An
Implementation Guide. Washington, DC: Office of Community Oriented Policing
Services. http://ric-zai-inc.com/Publications/cops-p280-pub.pdf.
Pettit, B., and B. Western. 2004. “Mass Imprisonment and the Life Course: Race and
Class Inequality in U.S. Incarceration.” American Sociological Review 69:151–169.
Rose, D.R., and T.R. Clear. 1998. “Incarceration, Social Capital and Crime:
Implications for Social Disorganization Theory.” Criminology 36:441–480.
Sampson, R.J. 1986. “Crime in Cities: The Effects of Formal and Informal Social
Control.” Communities and Crime. Vol. 8 of Crime and Justice. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.

76
 References

Sampson, R.J., and D.J. Bartusch. 1998. “Legal Cynicism and (Subcultural?) Tolerance
of Deviance: The Neighborhood Context of Racial Differences.” Law and Society
Review 32 (4): 777–804.
Sampson, R.J., and J.J. Laub. 1990. “Crime and Deviance over the Life Course:
The Salience of Adult Social Bonds.” American Sociological Review 55:609–627.
U.S. Department of Justice. 2014. “Grants.” Accessed December 2013.
http://www.justice.gov/business/.

77
Resources
Best, Mary. 2009. “Model Police Work.” UNCG Research (7): 8–15.
Corsaro, Nicholas, E.D. Hunt, N.K. Hipple, and E.F. McGarrell. 2012. “The Impact of
Drug Market Pulling Levers Policing on Neighborhood Violence.” Criminology &
Public Policy 11 (2).
Corsaro, Nicholas, Rod K. Brunson, and Edmund F. McGarrell. 2009.
“Problem-Oriented Policing and Open-Air Drug Markets: Examining
the Rockford Pulling Levers Deterrence Strategy.” Crime & Delinquency.
doi:10.1177/0011128709345955.
Corsaro, Nicholas, and Edmund F. McGarrell. 2009. “An Evaluation of the Nashville
Drug Market Initiative (DMI) Pulling Levers Strategy.” Lansing, MA: Michigan
State University. http://www.nnscommunities.org/NashvilleEvaluation.pdf.
Frabutt, J.M., M.K. Hefner, L.K. Harvey, K.L. Di Luca, and T.L. Shelton. Forthcoming.
“Key Community Stakeholders in a Police-Community Partnership to Eliminate
Street-Drug Markets: Roles, Engagement, and Assessment of the Strategy.” Crime,
Punishment, and the Law: An International Journal.
Frabutt, J. M., M.K. Hefner, K.L. Di Luca, T.L. Shelton, and L.K. Harvey. 2010.
“A Street-Drug Elimination Initiative: The Law Enforcement Perspective.” Policing:
An International Journal of Police Strategies and Management 33 (3): 452–472.
High Point Police Department. 2011. Drug Market Intervention: The West End
Initiative, High Point, North Carolina. New York: National Network for Safe
Communities. http://www.nnscommunities.org/high_point_dmi_ppt.pdf.
Hipple, Natalie K., and Edmund F. McGarrell. 2009. “Bureau of Justice Assistance
Drug Market Intervention Implementation Guide and Lessons Learned.”
Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Assistance. http://www.nnscommunities.org/
DMI-LessonsLearned2-1-2010.pdf.
Hipple, Natalie K., Nicholas Corsaro, and Edmund F. McGarrell. 2010. “The
High Point Drug Market Initiative: A Process and Impact Assessment.” East
Lansing, MI: Michigan State University. http://drugmarketinitiative.msu.edu/
HighPointMSUEvaluationPSN12.pdf.
Kennedy, David. 2009. “Drugs, Race and Common Ground: Reflections on the High
Point Intervention.” National Institute of Justice Journal 262 (March).

79
Drug Market Intervention: An Implementation Guide

Kennedy, David. 2008. “Applications I: Eliminating Overt Drug Markets: The ‘High
Point’ Strategy.” Chap. 9 in Deterrence and Crime Prevention: Reconsidering the
Prospect of Sanction, 142. New York: Routledge.
Kennedy, David M. 2008. Deterrence and Crime Prevention: Reconsidering the Prospect of
Sanction. New York: Routledge.
Kennedy, David M., and Sue-Lin Wong. 2009. The High Point Drug Market Intervention
Strategy. Washington: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented
Policing Services. http://ric-zai-inc.com/ric.php?page=detail&id=COPS-P166.
McGarrell, Edmund F., Nicholas Corsaro, and Ron K. Brunson. 2010. “The Drug
Market Intervention Approach to Overt Drug Markets.” VARSTVOSLOVJE,
Journal of Criminal Justice and Security 12 (4): 397–407. http://www.fvv.uni-mb.si/
varstvoslovje/articles/VS-2010-4-McGarrell.pdf.
Meares, Tracey. 2009. “The Legitimacy of Police among Young African-American Men.”
Marquette Law Review 92 (4): 651–666.
Sampson, R.J., and D.J. Bartusch. 1998. “Legal Cynicism and (Subcultural?) Tolerance
of Deviance: The Neighborhood Context of Racial Differences.” Law and Society
Review 32 (4): 777–804.

80
About the National Network for Safe
Communities
The National Network for Safe Communities represents and supports jurisdictions
around the country and internationally to apply and advance proven strategies to reduce
serious violent crime and to close overt drug markets.
The National Network recognizes that both law enforcement and the community
must play a critical role in addressing these problems—but that neither can do it alone.
Therefore, its strategies combine the best of law enforcement and community crime
prevention approaches to improve public safety dramatically.
Launched as a project of the Center for Crime Prevention and Control at John Jay
College of Criminal Justice in New York in 2009, the National Network currently
comprises more than 60 jurisdictions actively implementing and advancing two specific
strategies: the Group Violence Intervention (GVI), first implemented as “Operation
Ceasefire” in Boston in the mid-1990s, and the Drug Market Intervention (DMI),
also known as the “High Point Model,” after the North Carolina city that pioneered it.
These strategies are carefully designed to produce specific results:
• Reduce serious violence
• Shut down overt drug markets
• Reduce arrests and imprisonment
• Strengthen disadvantaged communities
• Use existing resources
The National Network is committed to saving lives and saving communities by
taking its strategies to a national scale and serving the nation’s most vulnerable areas.
The National Network is designed to represent and support its members by offering
them technical assistance, recognizing and helping others learn from their work
and innovations, supporting peer exchange and education, conducting research and
evaluations, and raising the visibility of their work.
Please visit www.nnscommunities.org for detailed information on the National
Network’s mission, strategies, research findings, media coverage, events, and membership.

81
Photo: Richard Thornton / Shutterstock
About the COPS Office
The Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office) is the
component of the U.S. Department of Justice responsible for advancing the practice
of community policing by the nation’s state, local, territory, and tribal law enforcement
agencies through information and grant resources.
Community policing is a philosophy that promotes organizational strategies that
support the systematic use of partnerships and problem-solving techniques, to
proactively address the immediate conditions that give rise to public safety issues such
as crime, social disorder, and fear of crime.
Rather than simply responding to crimes once they have been committed, community
policing concentrates on preventing crime and eliminating the atmosphere of fear it
creates. Earning the trust of the community and making those individuals stakeholders
in their own safety enables law enforcement to better understand and address both the
needs of the community and the factors that contribute to crime.
The COPS Office awards grants to state, local, territory, and tribal law enforcement
agencies to hire and train community policing professionals, acquire and deploy
cutting-edge crime fighting technologies, and develop and test innovative policing
strategies. COPS Office funding also provides training and technical assistance to
community members and local government leaders and all levels of law enforcement.
The COPS Office has produced and compiled a broad range of information resources
that can help law enforcement better address specific crime and operational issues, and
help community leaders better understand how to work cooperatively with their law
enforcement agency to reduce crime.
• Since 1994, the COPS Office has invested more than $14 billion to add community
policing officers to the nation’s streets, enhance crime fighting technology, support
crime prevention initiatives, and provide training and technical assistance to help
advance community policing.
• To date, the COPS Office has funded approximately 125,000 additional officers to
more than 13,000 of the nation’s 18,000 law enforcement agencies across the country
in small and large jurisdictions alike.

83
Drug Market Intervention: An Implementation Guide

• Nearly 700,000 law enforcement personnel, community members, and government

leaders have been trained through COPS Office-funded training organizations.
• To date, the COPS Office has distributed more than 8.57 million topic-specific
publications, training curricula, white papers, and resource CDs.
COPS Office resources, covering a wide breadth of community policing topics—from
school and campus safety to gang violence—are available, at no cost, through its online
Resource Center at www.cops.usdoj.gov. This easy-to-navigate website is also the grant
application portal, providing access to online application forms.

84
The National Network for Safe Communities’ Drug Market Intervention (DMI)
has repeatedly demonstrated that overt drug markets can be reduced when law
enforcement, community members, and social service providers join together
to engage directly with dealers and clearly communicate (1) a credible, moral
message against dealing; (2) a credible law enforcement message about the group
consequences of further dealing; and (3) a genuine offer of help for those who want it.
Drug Market Intervention: An Implementation Guide provides practical information intended to
help law enforcement, community, and social services partners—the strategy’s key
stakeholders—prepare and successfully execute DMI to close overt drug markets. It
discusses the ways overt drug markets damage neighborhoods, contribute to disorder,
and negatively affect communities. This publication guides the reader through
the processes of partnership formation, police-community reconciliation, dealer
notifications, staging call-ins, maintaining closure of drug markets, and delivering
services to dealers. DMI is intended to help communities reduce the use of intrusive
policing practices, transform neighborhoods, and allow law enforcement to step back
and the community to reclaim its voice in how it wants to live.
This publication is part of an ongoing series by the National Network for Safe
Communities about its two core crime reduction strategies: the Group Violence
Intervention and the Drug Market Intervention.

U.S. Department of Justice John Jay College of Criminal Justice

Office of Community Oriented Policing Services The City University of New York
145 N Street NE 524 West 59th Street
Washington, DC 20530 New York, NY 10019
To obtain details on COPS Office programs, www.jjay.cuny.edu
call the COPS Office Response Center at 800-421-6770.
Visit the COPS Office online at www.cops.usdoj.gov.
ISBN: 978-1-935676-56-0
e031328561
Published 2015