It’s been said that “an expert is someone from over 50 miles away.” As the country attempts to deal with the two scourges of contemporary American society — inner-city gun violence and suburban drug overdoses we (collectively) become as vulnerable as rubes were at county fairs in the mid-19th century. As P.T. Barnum supposedly once said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.”
In the case of opioid addiction, a plethora of laboratory concocted substances — from Ibogaine to Suboxone to Vivitrol to whatever Big Pharma comes up with next week or month — lead the parents of addicts nationwide to pray that the next “miracle cure” will deliver their progeny from the clutches of heroin and the other chemicals that it’s being adulterated with of late. But sadly, their prayers have been dashed on the hard rocks of reality again and again.
Eventually these parents are going to come to the conclusion that keeping their kids off of drugs in the first place is far easier than getting them off drugs once they are bitten by the devil. But that’s another story for another day.
Nonetheless, bullshit abounds. Years ago I — along with numerous other writers — posited that programs like D.A.R.E. were ineffective, and with the rising number of opioid overdoses in recent years, the proof is finally in. Indeed, such programs were worse than ineffective, they actually were harmful. While the uneducated public was pinning its hopes on the false promises of a program simply because it was run by in large part by cops, attention was diverted away from methods that could possibly work. Barnum said it best.
Something similar is happening in the field of gang violence. Well-meaning folks are running around the country touting programs they swear will bring down the number of deaths by gunfire in America’s urban cores. And while these folks are dedicated and well-meaning, I still am left scratching my head at some of their solutions.
While “violence interrupters” — individuals who go out into the community and attempt to prevent retaliatory shootings — are a good idea, the fact is, they only come into play after someone has been shot or killed. That’s akin to closing the barn door after the horse has escaped. Someone has already been shot or killed by the time they swing into action.
While this effort at violence reduction is no doubt necessary when we consider that every teenager who wants a gun can acquire one, it’s not a long term solution since it will still result in far too many deaths. Something more has to be done.
The solution of preference is to put more emphasis on enacting policies and programs that curtail the initial shootings. We have to figure out ways of interacting with youth and providing them with real opportunities so they’ll eschew picking up the gun in the first place.
Organizations similar to “Cure Violence” out of Chicago (that recently paid a visit to Cleveland and made a presentation) abound in the United States. And all of them are vying for the same dollars. They go from city to city making promises and touting solutions they may or may not be able to deliver on, but they collect their fees nonetheless. The groups know that when communities are desperate they’ll try anything.
But indeed, I have to admit to a great deal of skepticism when a group from Chicago promises to reduce gun violence. Where’s the empirical proof that their program works in the Windy City, where gun violence remains at an all-time high? Are we so dense here in Cleveland that we have to pay some outfit from over 50 miles away to show us how to curtail gun violence? I think not.
Since I speak with Blaine Griffin, the director of Cleveland’s Department of Community Relations, on a regular basis, I’m positive that he knows everything these organizations from across the country know — and probably then some. He’s been on the ground here fighting the good fight against gun violence and other pathologies for years, and is aware of things about Cleveland that someone from another city would have to spend years here to learn.
The problem isn’t that we don’t know what to do here in Cleveland. The problem is finding the funding to do it. Putting programs in place that divert youth from lives of crime are expensive, but not nearly as expensive as not implementing them. Put bluntly, the philanthropic community simply must step up and help fund workable solutions.
According to national statistics, the young person who pulls the trigger of a gun has had contact with law enforcement an average of eight times before they shoot or kill someone. That’s eight times we missed the opportunity to divert this individual from the path they’re on. Eight times we missed.
When we as a society get serious about drug addiction and gun violence, we’ll truly begin to see them as public health crises, and act accordingly. Then, and only then, will we initiate the “harm reduction” strategies (treatment on demand and safe injection sites) that have proven so successful in Europe for greatly reducing the number of deaths by overdose, and establish a diversity of real job training programs that offer young inner-city residents opportunities for a better life, realizing that not all young people can — or care to — learn medical coding.
First legitimate, viable alternatives have to be put in place, something we certainly have not done in America to this point. And then (and only then), for those recalcitrant addicts and gangbangers who are beyond the reach of salubrious programs — those who are already too far gone (as judged by reasonable, objective community standards) — we must lock them away until they age out of their negative behaviors.
While this might sound harsh, we’d actually be doing them — and their long-suffering families — a favor by saving their lives, and perhaps of the lives of innocent bystanders as well. Ask weepy family members this: Would you rather visit your loved one in a prison — or in a graveyard?
From Cool Cleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available again in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author by visiting http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.com.