Office of National Drug Control Policy

ONDCP Excel Forty-Third Row

Action Item Number: 
Action Item Name: 
Organize Communitywide Efforts to Reduce Open-Air Drug Markets and Gang Activity Via Drug Market Intervention Approaches
Action Item Description: 

In the past decade, numerous communities have taken a stand to stop open-air drug markets, not by making mass arrests, but rather by implementing powerful, positive, restorative justice techniques.

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One such approach is the emerging Drug Market Intervention (DMI) approach. Participating neighborhoods had been targeted with traditional drug enforcement methods that produced short-lived positive gains. Many of these communities, fed up with a seemingly never-ending cycle of drug dealing and violence, followed a new multipronged operational plan, piloted in High Point, NC, that addressed individual geographic drug markets, directly engaged drug dealers and their families, created clear and predictable sanctions, offered a range of community services and help, and, perhaps most important, mobilized community and offender standards about right and wrong. Jurisdictions that have successfully implemented this strategy include Chicago, IL; Durham, NC; Milwaukee, WI; Nashville, TN; Nassau County, NY; New Haven, CT; Ocala, FL; Providence, RI; Raleigh, SC; and Rockford, IL. Several other cities are in the process of evaluating initial results. Training on the DMI has taken place in High Point, NC; Milwaukee, WI; Nashville, TN; and Tampa, FL. The Department of Justice is in the process of replicating and evaluating these efforts elsewhere, and reviewing and funding DMI efforts will remain a priority area for exploration.

Lead Agency: 
DOJ
Component(s): 
OJP