The High Point Initiative on Primetime!

Last night after watching Project Runway (good riddance, Daniel!) I was flipping through the channels and stopped at ABC, where an episode of Primetime:Crime caught my eye. The episode featured a story about implementation of The High Point Initiative in chronically drug-plagued Hempstead, NY. The High Point Initiative is an innovative strategy designed to reduce drug crime that was piloted in High Point, NC by law enforcement officials and John Jay criminologist David Kennedy.

The story was quite compelling. Primetime cameras documented the implementation of the program in Hempstead over an eight-month period. (NPR also did a story a few months ago about the efforts in Hempstead, which you can listen to here.) First, drug dealers were caught on camera selling drugs. Then an assistant DA along with members of the community knocked on the doors of these folks, telling them that rather than arresting them the prosecutor's office had decided to give them a pass. To avoid jail time, all they would have to do is show up to a community meeting, keep a job, attend a support group, and avoid getting arrested for any crime.

You can read the print article and watch video clips of the story to see how well the Initiative worked in Hempstead -- and worked it did! Perhaps the most important component of the program is that participants are provided jobs. It is one thing to stress to dealers how much their actions are harming the community; it is quite another to offer them legal, viable alternatives for earning income.

I'm sure that there is much to discuss about this program (and others like it), but I am not familiar enough with the research to offer much of an analysis. I will say, though, how pleased I was to see a true-crime TV show focus on an innovative, community-based crime prevention strategy rather than the usual, bloody "whodunits".