Residents weary of navigating the dealers just want them off their block.
But it’s not that easy. Nearly every time a street operation is cleared out, another one appears to take its place. Such was the case at the corner of Springfield and Thomas in West Humboldt Park. Last year McCarthy and Mayor Rahm Emanuel declared a “ground war” on drug operations there. It was quiet for awhile, but in recent weeks different factions have fought to take back the corner.
Meanwhile, thousands of street-level salesmen and users have been cuffed and hauled to the station:
* Chicago police last year made about 35,000 arrests for drug offenses. That’s down almost 9 percent from 2011 and the lowest total since 1992, when police made about 34,400 drug arrests. But it’s still far and away the leading category of arrest in Chicago.
* The majority of drug busts were for misdemeanor marijuana possession. While the number of these arrests dropped 12 percent from 2011 to 2012, there were still nearly 18,000 of them, even though a new city ordinance gave police the option of issuing tickets instead. Police made about 2,000 more arrests for dealing or possessing larger amounts of pot. By comparison, police only wrote 380 tickets for marijuana possession.
* Most of the drug arrests occurred in just ten of the city’s 50 wards; all of the top-hit wards are African-American. In fact, the top 17 wards for drug arrests are all predominantly black.
* The west side remains the center of open-air drug selling and enforcement, as it has been for decades. Fourteen of the 15 police beats with the most drug arrests were on the west side. Almost all of them are along the expressway, which provides ready access for customers from the suburbs and across the Midwest.
* The hard drug of choice for these consumers is heroin. Arrests for heroin went up 9 percent in 2012.
* On the upside, arrests for crack and powder cocaine continued a decade-long decline, reflecting decreased popularity of the drugs. Arrests for crack—thought to be at the center of the gang wars of the 1990s—are down more than 75 percent since 2002.
* You can see a year-by-year breakdown of specific offenses here. To see where your police beat ranks, click here.
Speaking in Chicago last week, President Obama made welcome news by announcing plans to promote investment and create jobs in distressed areas. Mayor Emanuel then said he’s going to launch his own violence prevention programs by leveraging businesses for funding. Neither mentioned the drug policies pulling so many young people into the criminal justice system.
Article Appeared @http://www.chicagoreader.com/Bleader/archives/2013/02/22/drug-arrests-drop-in-chicago-but-still-snare-thousands-in-black-neighborhoods