DC: Lack Of Littering Consciousness

I have made littering complaints to the MPD only to be told that there is nothing they can do about it - makes no sense that littering laws are designed to be impossible to enforce. This will be somewhat of an improvement but I tend question how much - don't expect the trash on the streets to go away anytime soon.



Police step up littering enforcement

By ELIZABETH WIENER
Current Staff Writer
May 4, 2011

A pilot program to help police enforce the city’s antilitter laws took off cautiously in parts of wards 4 and 5 this week. If it works, officials say, the rest of the city will find police ticketing and fining litterbugs later this year.

The pilot, based on a 2008 law, authorizes the Metropolitan Police Department to require litterers to give proper identification so they can be issued a ticket carrying a $75 fine. Police can issue the tickets to those who toss cans, bottles, cigarette butts and other trash into public space and waterways. Previous law allowed drivers to be ticketed for littering, but the new law applies to passengers as well.

Police officers will have to witness the violation in order to write a ticket.

For the first month, police will issue only warnings; the actual fines will kick in on June 1. Offenders who do not give their correct name and address could be fined an additional $100 to $250 by the D.C. Superior Court.

At a press briefing last week, Mayor Vincent Gray noted that past city litter laws have lacked teeth because police couldn’t force offenders to identify themselves unless they were actually arrested. But, he said, littering is a serious enough problem that “we have to bring the force of law to bear. This program helps us to do that.”

A2008 report states that the District government was spending about $20 million a year picking up litter, and that littering and other quality-of-life offenses are often linked to neighborhoods in decline and more violent crime.

Police spokesperson Gwendolyn Crump said the Metropolitan Police Department’s 4th District, which covers most of Ward 4 and parts of Ward 5, was chosen for the pilot because littering is an “oft-mentioned concern” in the community. She said police need to test out new ticketing forms and a new adjudication process by the Office of Administrative Hearings for several months to see if future changes will be needed.

“We hope to implement training and launch citywide enforcement around mid to late fall, at the earliest,” Crump wrote in an email.

Meanwhile, the existing law, which allows police to cite motorists for littering, will continue to be enforced citywide. Police have always had the authority to stop cars and demand a driver’s license, and there’s already a $100 fine for drivers who litter from a vehicle.

Fourth District Cmdr. Kimberly Chisley-Missouri notified residents about the new anti-littering effort last week, winning a string of compliments and suggestions on neighborhood listservs.

“Excellent news,” wrote one resident. “I encourage 4D to be on the lookout for littering at and around the Autozone” on Georgia Avenue.

“Please give attention to the 7-Eleven Store” on 3rd Street, someone else wrote.

Others lamented the time they have spent clearing away coffee cups, carryout trays and other trash from bus shelters, and they noted the “folks who tend to clean their cars out at/near a stop sign” on Blagden Avenue. They said the police should focus their efforts on such litterers.

Litter laws are widely applauded but have been hard to enforce. In 2008, a D.C. Council committee report noted that although police already had authority to issue tickets, they first had to “ascertain the identity of the person to whom the ticket is being issued,” and that offenders were simply refusing to give their names.

Then police officials suggested they be allowed to ticket litterers the same way they ticket jaywalkers, under a law that requires offenders to provide their true name and address under penalty of a fine. Neither law requires any offender to carry official IDs.

A bill passed by the council late that year explicitly requires individuals stopped for violating litter laws to provide police with their name and address. It also gives police authority to stop a car and cite a littering passenger. The law took effect in March 2009.

But nothing in the D.C. bureaucracy is simple. Crump explained that enforcement took another two years because amendments were needed to clarify that laws protecting the confidentiality of juvenile offenders did not apply to civil violations like littering. Otherwise, the Office of Administrative Hearings, which handles adjudication, would have had to establish “extensive confidentiality procedures” for juveniles caught in the act of dropping trash, she wrote.

Crump said the new anti-litter program will not distract police from other higher-priority public safety efforts. “MPD is not going to become the ‘littering police,’” she wrote. The Department of Public Works and the Mayor’s Office of the Clean City will continue to take the lead. But “police officers, with their round-the-clock presence, can be an important part of the routine enforcement.”







http://www.currentnewspapers.com/admin/uploadfiles/NW%2005.04.11%201.pdf

It's Alll Clear If You Would Just See It

Lanier boasts transparency but doesn't deliver data

By: Scott McCabe
Examiner Staff Writer
August 25, 2010

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/Lanier-boasts-transparency-but-doesn_t-deliver-data-566809-101511479.html#ixzz0xpINBBpS

Shortly after D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier boasted that her agency was "the most transparent police department in the country," her spokeswoman said the report that purportedly supported the chief's claim of transparency was not available.

Speaking on TBD TV's "NewsTalk," Lanier said the Metropolitan Police Department offers more information and detailed statistics than any other police department in the United States. As proof, she cited an FBI audit earlier this month of the department's crime statistics that she said passed "with flying colors."

"If anybody has any questions," she said Tuesday, "I think the FBI can clear that up."

FBI spokesman Steve Fischer said he could not comment on the audit and said the release of the results were left up to the discretion of the police department. Auditors provided police a packet describing who they talked to and any areas of concern, and a formal report will be completed in a couple of months, Fischer said.

"But it's not really a pass-fail thing," Fischer said.

When asked to see the information that would back Lanier's claims, police spokeswoman Gwendolyn Crump said Wednesday that it would be months before it was available.

D.C. Council member Mary Cheh credited Lanier for being readily available to meet with residents, but when it comes to releasing information, the police department has been less than forthcoming, Cheh said.

"If [MPD] is the most transparent, then police departments around the country need lots of work," Cheh said. "There's been a lot of foot dragging."

The department's history of withholding information and manipulating statistics to make crime numbers look better had been well documented:

¥ Last year, the FBI reported that violent crime in the District rose 2.3 percent in 2008 while Lanier was claiming that violence had fallen by more than 5 percent during the same period.

¥ Up until this year, D.C. had been the only major city in the country that did not provide preliminary crime statistics. When The Examiner asked for the preliminary numbers in 2009, Lanier vetoed their release.

¥ D.C. police have denied an FBI report that the police department had lost DNA evidence to more than 200 rape cases.

¥ The department has refused to provide credit card receipts and travel reimbursements for Mayor Adrian Fenty's protection unit.

¥ When thieves stole bikes from Fenty's home this summer, the incident was not initially logged into the police computer system.

smccabe@washingtonexaminer.com

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/Lanier-boasts-transparency-but-doesn_t-deliver-data-566809-101511479.html

Report The Crime, Lose The Evidence

My mayor keeps telling me that I am safer despite numerous examples of why in my area I do not feel safer than 4 years ago..........
In this article from the Examiner, it is reported / alleged that DC police have lost DNA evidence in numerous rape cases. Doesn't make me feel any safer. The DC police chief, Cathy Lanier, is primarily quoted as disputing the report. So how many rape cases are closed each year? How many result in a conviction?

Feds: D.C. police have lost DNA evidence in more than 200 rape cases

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/Feds_-D_C_-police-have-lost-DNA-evidence-in-more-than-200-rape-cases-1008635-100393964.html#ixzz0xcegU0dT

Crime Down In DC?

D.C. police stats show spike in serious sex crimes

By: Freeman Klopott
Examiner Staff Writer
July 22, 2010

Sexual assaults across the District spiked nearly 50 percent in the first five months of 2010 over the same period last year, according to internal police documents obtained by The Washington Examiner.

From Jan. 1 to June 8 there were 82 sexual assaults in the city, up from 56 during the same period in 2009, the documents show.

But Chief Cathy Lanier told The Examiner that the document is a "preliminary report to be used in conjunction with and read within the context of all the reports and totality of the data available to us." The statistics, she said, are subject to change "for a variety of reasons, including late reporting, reclassification of some offenses, and discovery that some offenses are unfounded."

Lanier said when all classifications of sexual assaults are accounted for, including misdemeanors, there has been more than a 3 percent decrease when compared with last year. She did not elaborate when pressed to provide specific data showing the decline in sexual assaults.

Police union chief Kris Baumann said Lanier's formulation is designed to hide the number of serious violent sexual assaults.

"Sexual assaults are on the rise," he said. "If the department had aggressively informed the public of the danger, some people may not have become victims."

The difficulty is that there's different ways of measuring crime, said D.C. Councilman Phil Mendelson, whose committee has oversight of the police department.

There's always a conflict between the D.C. crime statistics the police department releases and those reported by the FBI. At the end of 2008, Lanier reported to the D.C. Council that violent crime had fallen over the previous year. When the FBI's uniform crime statistics came out in September 2009, they showed the number of murders, rapes, robberies and assaults had increased by 2.3 percent in 2008 from 2007.

Mendelson is sending a letter to Lanier that will "make the point that there needs to be a better explanation of these numbers."

Lanier said she's committed to providing "full and complete" crime information.

"If anything," she said, "more confusion arises because we do provide data in a variety of formats that allows people to analyze the data themselves."

fklopott@washingtonexaminer.com

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/D_C_-police-stats-show-spike-in-serious-sex-crimes-1002401-98961469.html

Disorderly Conduct

Disorderly conduct and resisting arrest have long been charges police use when nothing else is working. Both charges have definitely been overused and often used abusively by police as a harassing tactic. Not withstanding such abuses, the following case makes me wonder. What does it take to be legally disorderly?



D.C. police's search for drugs on D.C. teen is ruled illegal

By Mary Pat Flaherty
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 4, 2010; B01

A few days before Christmas 2005 at nearly midnight, a uniformed District police officer patrolling the Sursum Corda neighborhood in Northwest heard a 16-year-old on a corner call out his name and ask, "What's up?"

That was before the yelling.

And it was the yelling -- not the $974 in cash or the 24 baggies of crack cocaine that police later found on the teenager -- that landed Officer Robert Elliott and the juvenile in a rare but important case before the D.C. Court of Appeals.

The appeals court said Thursday that the teen had been searched unreasonably after a flawed arrest for disorderly conduct. The decision angered the city's police union and overturned a lower court's decision that concluded that the youth had been disorderly and had crack that he intended to distribute.

If prosecutors wanted to retry the teenager, identified in court papers as T.L., for drug possession, they "theoretically" were free to do so, the appeals court said. But prosecutors cannot use the crack they found hidden in T.L.'s pants because they had searched him illegally.

As described in the appeals court opinion:

Elliott was driving in the 1100 block of First Place NW in the neighborhood near Union Station on Dec. 22, 2005, when he saw men on a corner "notorious" for drive-by shootings and drug dealing.

T.L. called out, "Hey, Elliott, what's up?" The group dispersed, but T.L. remained as Elliott asked him, "You got any drugs or guns on [you]?"

T.L. answered, "Yo, Officer Elliott, you know me. I ain't got no drugs or guns. . . . Go ahead and search me."

Elliott did. He found two "wads" of cash totaling $974 in the teen's coat and pants pockets. Elliott seized the cash, telling T.L. that he was taking it because they were in a high drug-trafficking area and it was "a large amount of currency to have on your person."

If T.L. could produce a pay stub, Elliott told him, he "possibly" could get the cash back after it was processed at the police station.

T.L. began calling for his mother and yelling: "They're taking my money. I work at McDonald's. I got that money working for McDonald's."

Between 10 and 15 people came out of their townhouses to see what was happening.

To the officer, the gathering crowd was a potential threat. He testified that the growing number of people could be incited and harm bystanders, officers and the teen. Elliott said he considered it "very dangerous" to draw a crowd, "especially in Sursum Corda." Elliott repeatedly told T.L. to quiet down, and when he didn't, he arrested him for disorderly conduct. A search followed, and police found the bags of crack cocaine in T.L.'s pants, according to court papers.

In explaining the reason for the arrest, the officer and prosecutors pointed to a part of the disorderly conduct statute that covers noise or shouts inside or outside a building during the night that annoy or disturb a "considerable number" of people.

The appeals court rejected that argument, saying T.L. did not urge the peaceful crowd to interfere. T.L. might have been annoying to his neighbors, but "there is no evidence they were hostile or likely to become violent," so the rationale for his arrest was wrong. Because police had no reason to arrest him, the search that followed was illegal, it said.

T.L. was adjudicated as involved -- the juvenile court equivalent of guilty -- on the disorderly conduct and drug charges.

The Public Defender Service appealed. Julie Leighton, spokeswoman for the service, said the office does not comment on appeals cases.

The appeals court's decision outraged the union representing D.C. officers.

"At some point, police have to be allowed to be the police," said Kristopher Baumann, head of the labor committee for the local Fraternal Order of Police. "The District of Columbia is never going to get a handle on crime if appellate judges keep substituting their view of what is safe or unsafe in high-drug areas."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/03/AR2010060304896.html

Easy Parking For Some

More illegal overnight parking by government vehicles - this is not a cop on duty - often seen parked overnight during the fall of 2009. Notice that it is a 5th District cruiser - parked at the northwest corner of 11th and Fairmont Sts. NW, in the 3rd District.

A Pattern Of Illegal Parking With No Consequence

Here is some nice parking on the southeast corner of Fairmont and 13th Sts NW, on Fairmont, taken February 21, 2010. When you have a DC government vehicle, parking regulations for the common folk mean nothing. This is a person who gets to take home a DC government car. This person regularly parks overnight illegally.

Free Parking For Some

The daylight photo below is at the northeast corner of 13th and Fairmont Sts. NW, on Fairmont next to the Great Pleasant Plains Baptist Church, taken on Tuesday, April 20, 2010 at around 7:20am. The nighttime photos fo the same car were taken earlier that morning around 3:00am at the same location. The white Honda Civic is parked in front of, to the left of in the first picture, a clearly marked "No Parking Anytime" sign pointing towards the Civic.



















Parking is an issue in many areas of DC. In the most congested of areas in Ward 1, in Columbia Heights and Adams Morgan parking can be very scarce and elicit many emotions. Over the past few months there have been two different Honda Civics belonging to the DC government that at various times, for extended periods of time, park illegally in a couple of clearly marked "No Parking Anytime" zones. As in overnight or for lunch break.

A few different residents in the area have reported the illegal parking to 311 as well as other DC government offices. A couple of weeks ago one of the illegally parked Civics actually got a parking ticket. Yet the illegal parking continues as the above recently taken photo shows.

Frequently cars in this area get a variety of tickets while parked overnight that are issued by patrol officers, not parking enforcement. For example a ticket issued at 2:30am to an otherwise legally parked car for not having the registration sticker properly affixed in the left lower corner of the windshield - a valid sticker is there but it is leaning against the glass perhaps while the owner is trying to deal with getting the old one off to make room for the thing; issued by a patrol officer driving a cruiser. Yet only once have I seen a ticket on these two cars and that was issued in the morning by parking enforcement at around 9:30am. Community policing is all about what community you are in I guess.

From the photos we can see that this person has free parking at two city parking lots in prime areas - the Wilson Building and the Reeves Center. In a city that in general does not build public parking garages, this person has a nice perk.

DC Police Operational Orders And Directives

From themail@DCWatch, information on how the DC police are supposed to do it (by their own orders and directives):

Police Documents Released in Response to PCJF Lawsuit
Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, mvh@justiceonline.org

The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund has just obtained a massive disclosure of previously withheld documents governing police operations. The PCJF forced the Metropolitan Police Department of Washington, DC (MPD) to disclose nearly all of its General Orders and Special Orders and related directives that dictate how officers are to exercise their authority. Most of this information has been withheld by the police from the public. Those orders, released in response to a PCJF lawsuit, are being posted and made publicly available on the PCJF’s web site at http://www.justiceonline.org/site/PageServer?pagename=DCMPDIndexOfDirectives or by visiting DCMPD.org.

The PCJF filed a lawsuit on February 5 to force the DC Metropolitan Police Department’s operations out of the shadows through disclosure of its orders and policies. The DC MPD was in violation of its legal obligations, as mandated by the DC Council in 2001, to make this information public and had further refused to make such information public upon written request under the DC Freedom of Information Act. The PCJF’s lawsuit followed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for these documents. The public can now review what the MPD internal policy dictates regarding police-resident contacts, stops and frisks, restrictions on MPD high speed vehicular pursuits, use of closed circuit television cameras, handling of property, obligations to release persons through the citation release program, electronic recording of interrogations, use of canines, traffic safety compliance checkpoints, and a range of other issues that span the full scope of police authority. Advocacy organizations now have access to orders pertaining to processing of deaf or hearing impaired citizens, juveniles, transgendered persons and other groups requiring special care.

The MPD has long refused efforts from civil rights and civil liberties and community based organizations for this disclosure, but the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund went to court to get the documents. The MPD is still withholding a smaller number of orders claiming they are “law enforcement sensitive” and the MPD has yet to release, as demanded, copies of its staff manuals. These matters remain pending before the Court. The PCJF has also sued to force the MPD to publish these materials on the Internet, and to maintain them as current, so that citizens and the public can access these materials on demand without even having to file a request. Internet publication is required by the DC Freedom of Information statute, but the MPD has refused to comply with the law. In response to the PCJF lawsuit, the MPD posted some “selected” Orders on its web site. However the materials obtained by the PCJF and now being made available on the PCJF web site are a vastly larger trove of records and resources.

Last month, DC Superior Court Judge Judith N. Macaluso ruled in favor of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund that it could proceed with its suit to compel the MPD to comply with those Internet publication directives. “Public disclosure of the operational policies and practices, orders and staff instructions of the police department is essential for policing in a democratic society and to establish accountability,” stated Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, cofounder and attorney with the PCJF. “Disclosure is essential to ensure that the police department does not operate above the law and does not constitute the law, but performs those functions and exercises only that authority which the citizenry has deemed appropriate,” she continued.

http://www.dcwatch.com/themail/2009/09-10-28.htm

Another Side Swiped Car

For a time now, I have been very thankful that our parked cars have been free of random "intrusions" for a number of years of now. By intrusions I mean not only the smashed window in search of what might be found fast in the glove compartment but also the exterior being side swiped by other cars, keyed by pedestrians, damage to locks or otherwise screwed with.

This morning caught us right up to up date though! As seen in the above photo, something made contact with the blue Prius and the black Lexus. In the photos below is the striking vehicle, a Dodge Caravan, abandoned by it's driver and two occupants about three cars down from the black Lexus. The driver turned the Caravan off, took the keys and left the lights on.








This happened sometime around 7:45am. I would have saved a fair amount of aggravation had I been in bed and slower to respond - maybe even slept through it all - but instead I was up and working in the front room on the first floor when I heard the sound of metal being hit. I looked out the window immediately, thinking at first that somebody or something had done something to either the neighbor's or our metal front porch. Then I saw that a mini van was stopped in the street and it was clear there was damage to the front of the passenger's side. It was clear that the mini van had side swiped a car but I could not tell which car. I then went outside to see what was up with anyone in the mini van and see which car had been hit. As no one had jumped out the doors and started running (as I have seen before), I thought maybe there was a chance the driver was legit.

As I came up to the rear of the van, the driver, a Hispanic male about 25 with a short pony tail and blue and white sweat shirt on, was getting out. He looked fine and made no indication that he was hurt or that anyone in the van was hurt. He looked tired but not drunk; his motions were even. As I scanned the park cars, I saw that about three cars behind where the mini van was stopped, two cars had been hit; one of the cars was ours, the other one belonging to one of our longtime neighbors.

I asked the man about registration and license; he seemed to be getting something out of the mini van and talking to someone in the van. The rear side door and the passenger front door had opened and two Hispanic men, one also about 25, the other a little younger looking, were beginning to get out. One or both of them also had a short pony tail. Neither of the two men seemed to have been hurt. The driver continued to seem to be getting something from the vehicle when I realized that he was not doing anything about his license and registration and he was telling the other two that it was time to go. And away they ran, leaving the mini van in the middle of the street.

As this was all happening a few different neighbors were calling the police, who took more than 15 minutes to appear. As the police (two officers, one patrol car) did not find the mini van listed as stolen, their attitude was that nothing was suspicious about the three men running away. They found a registration and expired insurance card in the van -which they somewhat reluctantly shared. After talking to a few neighbors and getting info on the two cars hit, they basically sat in their cruiser for two and a half hours until the tow truck came to collect the mini van. After the flares burned off in about 20 minutes, the two officers made no effort to keep other cars from turning into Fairmont from 11th St. or to warn cars coming down Fairmont that the road was blocked. They only got out of the cruiser if a driver was trying to make a U turn to return up Fairmont.

When the men were running from the car, I saw one of the man throw a black leather looking case into the curb side storm drain. The officers were not interested in the least about that, refusing to even listen to the information. Basically they seemed to be on a mop up mission that allowed for a lot of sitting. Two and a half hours of sitting in the cruiser seemed to me to be a very ineffective use of the police. Is this what passes for community policing?

only answer to drug problem

From the Washington Post and distributed on neighborhood list serve - It's Time to Legalize Drugs By Peter Moskos and Stanford "Neill" Franklin Monday, August 17, 2009 Undercover Baltimore police officer Dante Arthur was doing what he does well, arresting drug dealers, when he approached a group in January. What he didn't know was that one of suspects knew from a previous arrest that Arthur was police. Arthur was shot twice in the face. In the gunfight that ensued, Arthur's partner returned fire and shot one of the suspects, three of whom were later arrested. In many ways, Dante Arthur was lucky. He lived. Nationwide, a police officer dies on duty nearly every other day. Too often a flag-draped casket is followed by miles of flashing red and blue lights. Even more officers are shot and wounded, too many fighting the war on drugs. The prohibition on drugs leads to unregulated, and often violent, public drug dealing. Perhaps counterintuitively, better police training and bigger guns are not the answer. When it makes sense to deal drugs in public, a neighborhood becomes home to drug violence. For a low-level drug dealer, working the street means more money and fewer economic risks. If police come, and they will, some young kid will be left holding the bag while the dealer walks around the block. But if the dealer sells inside, one raid, by either police or robbers, can put him out of business for good. Only those virtually immune from arrests (much less imprisonment) -- college students, the wealthy and those who never buy or sell from strangers -- can deal indoors. Six years ago one of us wrote a column on this page, "Victims of the War on Drugs." It discussed violence, poor community relations, overly aggressive policing and riots. It failed to mention one important harm: the drug war's clear and present danger toward men and women in blue. Drug users generally aren't violent. Most simply want to be left alone to enjoy their high. It's the corner slinger who terrifies neighbors and invites rivals to attack. Public drug dealing creates an environment where disputes about money or respect are settled with guns. In high-crime areas, police spend much of their time answering drug-related calls for service, clearing dealers off corners, responding to shootings and homicides, and making lots of drug-related arrests. One of us (Franklin) was the commanding officer at the police academy when Arthur (and well as Moskos) graduated. We all learned similar lessons. Police officers are taught about the evils of the drug trade and given the knowledge and tools to inflict as much damage as possible upon the people who constitute the drug community. Policymakers tell us to fight this unwinnable war. Only after years of witnessing the ineffectiveness of drug policies -- and the disproportionate impact the drug war has on young black men -- have we and other police officers begun to question the system. Cities and states license beer and tobacco sellers to control where, when and to whom drugs are sold. Ending Prohibition saved lives because it took gangsters out of the game. Regulated alcohol doesn't work perfectly, but it works well enough. Prescription drugs are regulated, and while there is a huge problem with abuse, at least a system of distribution involving doctors and pharmacists works without violence and high-volume incarceration. Regulating drugs would work similarly: not a cure-all, but a vast improvement on the status quo. Legalization would not create a drug free-for-all. In fact, regulation reins in the mess we already have. If prohibition decreased drug use and drug arrests acted as a deterrent, America would not lead the world in illegal drug use and incarceration for drug crimes. Drug manufacturing and distribution is too dangerous to remain in the hands of unregulated criminals. Drug distribution needs to be the combined responsibility of doctors, the government, and a legal and regulated free market. This simple step would quickly eliminate the greatest threat of violence: street-corner drug dealing. We simply urge the federal government to retreat. Let cities and states (and, while we're at it, other countries) decide their own drug policies. Many would continue prohibition, but some would try something new. California and its medical marijuana dispensaries provide a good working example, warts and all, that legalized drug distribution does not cause the sky to fall. Having fought the war on drugs, we know that ending the drug war is the right thing to do -- for all of us, especially taxpayers. While the financial benefits of drug legalization are not our main concern, they are substantial. In a July referendum, Oakland, Calif., voted to tax drug sales by a 4-to-1 margin. Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron estimates that ending the drug war would save $44 billion annually, with taxes bringing in an additional $33 billion. Without the drug war, America's most decimated neighborhoods would have a chance to recover. Working people could sit on stoops, misguided youths wouldn't look up to criminals as role models, our overflowing prisons could hold real criminals, and -- most important to us -- more police officers wouldn't have to die. Peter Moskos is a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the author of "Cop in the Hood." Neill Franklin is a 32-year law enforcement veteran. Both served as Baltimore City police officers and are members of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.