VIEW DRUG DEALING AS WORK, STUDY SAYS

Milwaukee findings of thriving informal economy meant to prod policy talks

Are drug dealers violent criminals who poison neighborhoods? Or misguided
business people seeking jobs and income in a changing economy?

Drug dealing is often "an innovative, entrepreneurial, small business
venture" that employs more than 10% of the young men in many central city
neighborhoods, according to a new study of "The Business of Drug Dealing in
Milwaukee."

"Much of what we call 'crime' is actually work," writes John Hagedorn, a
longtime researcher into Milwaukee's gang culture who is assistant
professor of criminal science at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

"Most drug entrepreneurs are hard working, but not super-rich," wrote
Hagedorn in his report, prepared for the Wisconsin Policy Research
Institute and released today. "Most drug entrepreneurs aren't particularly
violent.

"Drug sales in poor neighborhoods are part of a growing informal economy
which has expanded and innovatively organized in response to the loss of
good jobs.

"The extent and centrality of drugs to the informal economy -- a major way
poor people are trying to survive -- indicates we should reconsider our
current drug policy," he wrote.

His 30-page report is the result of an unlikely marriage between Hagedorn
and the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute.

Hagedorn is a self-described "longtime left-wing activist" whose scholarly
book on Milwaukee's gang culture, "People and Folks," is now in its second
edition. The institute is well-known as a conservative group, funded by
right-leaning foundations and businesses.

But the alliance was intended by both partners to spark a fresh approach to
the drug issue. Institute President James Miller had no qualms about
Hagedorn's politics when he asked him to publish a study of drug dealing in
Milwaukee.

"It's an important topic and John does unique research," he said. "He's got
information nobody else has that should be looked at. There are few issues
with less information and research than the drug economy."

The institute "may differ with some of the author's recommendations,"
Miller wrote in his introduction. "But there is little question that this
study should stir the public policy debate."

Indeed, initial reaction to Hagedorn's analysis ranged from laudatory to
damning.

His conclusions "appear to me to be very accurate," said Gary Graika,
director of the Social Development Commission's Youth Diversion Program, a
leading anti-gang effort.

"One of the reasons kids join gangs is to make money through drug sales,"
Graika said. "There are a lot of young adults who have a very keen business
sense, and if given the opportunity to utilize these skills in the legal
economy, they'd do quite well for themselves."

But Hagedorn was strongly criticized by Rodney Cubbie, a private attorney
who led drug investigations and prosecutions for the Milwaukee district
attorney and the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, where
he headed the organized-crime drug unit.

"I don't understand this attempt to minimize what is a crime by suggesting
it's something different," said Cubbie. "I think it's almost insulting to
the working people living in neighborhoods" where drugs abound.

"Drug dealing destroys the neighborhood, and violence becomes an
ever-present possibility," he said.

ReDonna Rodgers, who runs a non-profit organization teaching business
skills to central city youths, said drug dealers see it "as the easiest way
to participate in the economy, provide for your family, get out of a
difficult time and have power and control."

"Businesses are apprehensive about locating in poor communities, which
would provide people a chance to earn an honest living," said Rodgers,
executive director of the Center for Teaching Entrepreneurship. "The power
brokers of these companies should not be as critical toward drug users or
drug dealers.

"Sometimes, they are no more harmful than a lot of the so-called legal
policy making that occurs across this country," she said.

Hagedorn's work was based on surveys and interviews with drug dealers in
two Milwaukee neighborhoods: one 16-square-block, largely Latino area; and
one 37-square-block, mostly African-American area. The neighborhoods, which
he wouldn't identify, are not among the most drug-or gang-dominated in the
city, he said.

In the two neighborhoods, Hagedorn turned up 28 distinct drug "firms"
employing 191 people. At least 10% of the Latino or African-American men
ages 18 to 29 in the neighborhoods were employed at least part time in the
drug business, he reported.

One-third of the businesses had gross monthly revenues of less than $1,000,
and only four of the 28 exceeded $5,000 monthly, he said.

Hagedorn said he wasn't looking to legitimize drug dealing so much as to
examine its economic function as a source of employment and income, to help
provoke dialogue about reforming national drug policies.

He opposes legalization of drugs such as cocaine and supports "continuing
strong social disapproval for drug use."

But he champions alternatives to incarceration for "non-violent drug dealing."

Hagedorn placed the drug business in the long tradition of the underground
economy, including many legal off-the-books businesses and many illegal
ones.

"Thousands of poor people across Milwaukee are forming their own businesses
and through diligence and hard work have been creatively struggling to
'make it,' " he wrote.

While many of these new businesses are legal and official, "most businesses
being started today in poor neighborhoods are off-the-books."

Such businesses include street-side car repair, hair cutting, child care,
house painting -- and drug dealing, the largest off-the-books business of
all.

Hagedorn looked at distribution techniques of central city and suburban
drug dealers, finding them radically different.

In the central city, drug dealers have moved away from the "corner sales"
and drug houses of the 1980s and early 1990s, choosing to "run their retail
business 'on the fly,' " using a beeper while waiting at a bar or house and
using "salesmen" to meet with customers.

These "new management techniques," as he calls them, have reduced the risk
of arrest and violence.

In the suburbs, drug sales are still "word-of-mouth" connections, mostly at
workplaces, bars and taverns, nightclubs and parties for high school
students.

"Drug dealing by whites in the suburbs and youth culture," he wrote, "is
more about partying than economics."

Checked-by: (Joel W. Johnson)