Hamsterdam

chunkylover4

In the TV series 'The Wire', one of the police majors creates an initiative in Baltimore city called Hamsterdam. Before the initiative, drug dealers in his district were operating on street corners where people lived, creating a lot of crime and violence in family neighborhoods.
If you havent seen season 3 and want to, best not read

Essentially what the major does is pick 3 zones in Baltimore where the houses are uninhabited, away from any shops or public areas. He puts police on the perimeters of these zones. He then tells the drug dealers that if they move to these zones and start selling drugs there, the police will not arrest them and will not arrest drug addicts for buying drugs there. On the contrary, while the police will 'turn a blind eye' to the drug-selling, they will be present to make sure there's no violence. He instructs his police to ratchet up pressure on any drug dealers who do not move to 'Hamsterdam', arresting and releasing them multiple times a day. Because this brings all the drug dealers and drug addicts together in the same place, the major then brings in health charities to distribute clean needles, condoms, HIV tests and medical advice to people like drug addicts and young drug dealers who are otherwise very transitory and difficult to reach.

The initiative results in violent crime dropping massively, because police are constantly present around the drug dealers; it increases the number of high-risk people like drug addicts getting clean needles, medical advice, tests and condoms; it completely 'cleans up' neighborhoods that had been hell-holes before because of drug dealing; and it frees up police time that would otherwise be spent making arrests for minor drug offences, which are often fairly futile.

Does anyone think this a good soloution to remedy drug problems and if not why?

Temptamperu

Dude spoilers

brendansmith

Bring back the gallows

Elmidena

Most importantly, where are the prostitutes?

Chuck Stone

S'all in the game yo.

amacachi

"I'd love to throw a fcuk into her."

mfceiling

Already exists OP....it's called ballymun...

Bloody Nipples

Well that's one way to put all them ghost estates to use. You could use it as a selling point for junkies on the social housing lists.

Beggared

chunkylover4 wrote: »

The initiative results in violent crime dropping massively, because police are constantly present around the drug dealers

Surely all the crimes committed by the druggies to finance their habits didn't drop?

If you could get all the dealers and druggies into one or two small areas why not just put up a big fence around them and napalm the lot of them? Problem solved.

El Siglo

"Isn't technology the fuckin' bomb!"

stupidusername

"fcuk"

El Weirdo

Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeit.

CardBordWindow

What's 'The Wire'? Just kidding.

Sunnyisland

We should try and implement portugal's policy of decriminalisation the use & possession of all illegal drugs,it has worked very well over there.If we dont do something here the problem wont go away and will/is just getting bigger & bigger.Addictions are much bigger than most people reliase.

http://www.google.ie/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCIQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FDrug_policy_of_Portugal&ei=GTpfToOTKJSXhQed9bGkBA&usg=AFQjCNEjtB0MW-7IR3JsZ0Ap5sE0k2zcZw

jester77

They do this in Frankfurt, or at least they did 10 years ago. There is a small area near the main train station where the police ignore the drug problem. About 15 or so years ago they decided to clean up the problem and all they ended up doing was spreading it around the city. So they now contain it to this area. It's a bit mind boggling to see it, I remember one day coming out of the train station and seeing a lad sitting on the steps shooting heroin from the underside of a beer can while a group of children watched on.

orourkeda

chunkylover4 wrote: »

In the TV series 'The Wire', one of the police majors creates an initiative in Baltimore city called Hamsterdam. Before the initiative, drug dealers in his district were operating on street corners where people lived, creating a lot of crime and violence in family neighborhoods.
If you havent seen season 3 and want to, best not read

Essentially what the major does is pick 3 zones in Baltimore where the houses are uninhabited, away from any shops or public areas. He puts police on the perimeters of these zones. He then tells the drug dealers that if they move to these zones and start selling drugs there, the police will not arrest them and will not arrest drug addicts for buying drugs there. On the contrary, while the police will 'turn a blind eye' to the drug-selling, they will be present to make sure there's no violence. He instructs his police to ratchet up pressure on any drug dealers who do not move to 'Hamsterdam', arresting and releasing them multiple times a day. Because this brings all the drug dealers and drug addicts together in the same place, the major then brings in health charities to distribute clean needles, condoms, HIV tests and medical advice to people like drug addicts and young drug dealers who are otherwise very transitory and difficult to reach.

The initiative results in violent crime dropping massively, because police are constantly present around the drug dealers; it increases the number of high-risk people like drug addicts getting clean needles, medical advice, tests and condoms; it completely 'cleans up' neighborhoods that had been hell-holes before because of drug dealing; and it frees up police time that would otherwise be spent making arrests for minor drug offences, which are often fairly futile.

Does anyone think this a good soloution to remedy drug problems and if not why?

Go on the Bunny Colvin

sensibleken

all they need to do in instead of burning heroin they intercept just send it on its way with a little cyanide added.

Monty Burnz

jester77 wrote: »

It's a bit mind boggling to see it, I remember one day coming out of the train station and seeing a lad sitting on the steps shooting heroin from the underside of a beer can while a group of children watched on.

Hopefully those kids will associate injecting drugs with sad, fcuked up losers and never try it themselves.

krudler

CardBordWindow wrote: »

What's 'The Wire'? Just kidding.

The greatest tv show ever made

orourkeda

Chuck Stone wrote: »

S'all in the game yo.

for real yo

WinstonOno

why not tell them we wont arrest them, wait for them to turn up, and then just arrest them, this would also lower crime rate

SV

WinstonOno wrote: »

why not tell them we wont arrest them, wait for them to turn up, and then just arrest them, this would also lower crime rate

lol, no it wouldn't.

conorhal

It doesn't work. The pragmatic Swiss tried this several times allowing open drug usage in particluar public parks. The predictable result was a spiraling crime rate in the area and a lot of really unhappy residents. Eventually they modified the program so that drug users could go to designated places in small groups or score, exchange needles and get a health check and go home to shoot up. They realised quite quickly that concentrating hundreds of junkies in one small area, to quote the Wire, "created hell on earth".

dagdha

orourkeda wrote: »

Go on the Bunny Colvin

True dat, true dat!