Pubdate: Thu, 09 Feb 2012
Source: Chicago Tribune (IL)
Copyright: 2012 Chicago Tribune Company
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/IuiAC7IZ
Website: http://www.chicagotribune.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/82
Author: Andy Grimm

PANEL: WAR ON DRUGS FAILING

Drug enforcement measures in place for decades have filled jails with 
poor and minority offenders, marred police officers' credibility in 
the neighborhoods they patrol and fractured communities, Chicago 
police Superintendent Garry Mccarthy and Cook County Board President 
Toni Preckwinkle agreed at a forum Wednesday night.

"(Drug use) is a driver of crime, but we have adopted a policy that 
it is the crime itself," Mccarthy said at Chicago Forward, a panel 
discussion hosted by the Tribune at the Chase Auditorium downtown.

Shutting down known drug markets and bringing in social services and 
other community support to "hold that territory" would be key to 
reducing crime and violence, he said.

Preckwinkle has endorsed making the possession of small amounts of 
marijuana an offense that would draw a ticket and a fine, rather than 
landing the offender in jail. Mccarthy concurred, saying pointedly he 
was against legalizing the drug, but that the city is working on 
making marijuana possession a ticketing offense.

"I'm all in favor of issuing tickets (for possession of small 
amounts)," Mccarthy said. "That way, I have my officers back" to work 
on patrol, rather than transporting offenders to jail.

Ameena Matthews, the daughter of El Rukn street gang founder Jeff 
Fort, disagreed with the idea that drugs and gangs are at the root of 
the surging violence in the South Side neighborhoods where she now 
works as an "interrupter" for the not-for-profit Ceasefire.

Matthews, whose work intervening in potential gang- and youth-related 
violence was featured in the critically acclaimed documentary "The 
Interrupters," said the problem is young people lashing out with 
weapons over "petty things."

"(Gang youths) don't have a clue what they're pledging membership 
to," said Matthews, who said that in her work, she is most often 
defusing situations where the potential violence is born of 
"something petty. This ain't about no gang turf."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom