Kind of an amazing new approach

[The Blue Flower]

From the Seatte Times today:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2009619108_webdrugdealers07m.html

More than a dozen Central Area drug dealers voluntarily walked into an auditorium full of police and prosecutors Thursday night and were presented with an ultimatum: Stop selling dope or prepare for prison.

Confronted with photos, video clips and binders full of evidence gathered in a yearlong operation along Seattle's 23rd Avenue corridor, from Madison to Jackson streets, the dealers were promised they wouldn't be arrested, prosecuted or sent to jail for 20 months or more if they embraced the job training, educational opportunities, housing assistance and chemical-dependency treatment being offered them.

Should they break the bargain by selling drugs anywhere in King County, the dealers were told, they'd feel the full force of the law.

"The community here cares about you but will no longer tolerate drug dealing in their neighborhoods," said Interim Seattle Police Chief John Diaz. "This isn't a joke, and it isn't a threat."

At a Friday morning news conference at Seattle Police headquarters, Diaz acknowledged, "There's a risk in doing this," but said it's time to try something different to eliminate street-level drug dealing in the city.

more at link...

[kristopher]

1. New? Maybe... Amazing? Not so much IMO.

The tactic is motivated by overcrowding in the jails. It has little more chance of being an effective means of making prohibition work than if the individuals involved were actually incarcerated. Think about it - in the context of the overall problem, how is this more of a deterrent than just throwing them in jail would be? The benefit/cost analysis that prompts people to supply drugs isn't altered in the direction of increased cost by this policy at all. If anything it reduces the cost while doing nothing to negatively impact the benefit.

Result: CLASSIC fail.

[theflyer03]

2. Probably...

The "interim Police Chief" will remain the "interim Police Chief" but I have to say it was an impressive move regardless of the motive, overcrowding or not.
Probably it will work for at least some of them. That would be a very good thing.