http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20130627/NEWS02/706279889
Published June 27, 2013 in the Rutland Herald Community forum draws crowd of 200 By SUSAN SMALLHEER Staff Writer SPRINGFIELD — Close to 200 people turned out Wednesday night to collect green bracelets that read “Not in Our Town — Springfield,” and show their concern and raise questions about the plague of heroin in their community. The community meeting was organized after last week’s drug sweep by the Vermont Drug Task Force, that resulted in the arrest of 33 dealers in the Springfield area, 22 of them Springfield residents. Vermont State Police Lt. Matthew Birmingham, commander of the Vermont Drug Task Force, said there had been a dramatic increase in heroin in Vermont, and that increase hit Springfield about six to eight months ago. Birmingham said the task force had arrested 33 of the 36 dealers they were seeking June 19, but he said the task force was by no means walking away after the high-visibility arrests. “We are not, by any means, done in Springfield,” said Birmingham, who, along with others who spoke said Springfield was not unique in having a serious drug problem in Vermont. Birmingham said the key to getting drug dealers out of Springfield and the rest of the state was to attack demand. “Vermont has an opiate problem, whether it’s Bennington, Rutland, St. Albans or Springfield,” he said. “Heroin and prescription drugs are our No. 1 priority.” Birmingham downplayed any role of organized gangs in the Springfield drug scene, saying dealers often claim the gang connection to appear tougher than they are. The audience included young people, parents with young children, white-haired business owners, and many of the town’s elected leaders, as well as social service agencies. Wendi L. Germain, executive director of the Springfield Justice Center, said town leaders started immediately last week to address the issues raised by the drug sweep and to organize Wednesday’s session, which was slated to conclude with “a walk together in the community” to show support. Germain said the community had to work together to address the problems. Trevor Banbridge, another member of the ad hoc group, said that “Not in Our Town” was “both an affirmation and also a lament, a plea of sadness.” The alleged drug dealers arrested last week in Springfield, he said, are people with children and parents. Vermont State Police Lt. Timothy Oliver said the best educators for the children in the community were their parents and other family members. Springfield Police Chief Douglas Johnston said he had grown up in Springfield and witnessed the loss of pride in the community as the town hit hard times economically. Police don’t have all the answers, he said. Sometimes painting a dilapidated house and mowing an unkempt lawn is a powerful tool to tell drug dealers they are not going to find a home here, the chief said. Several people questioned why the town has refused to fund the school resource officer at Springfield High School, as well as not funding a local school drug counselor. Kristi Morris, chairman of the Springfield Select Board, said the town had been actively working on several strategies to address the drug and crime problem ever since last July’s drug-related shooting downtown. Morris said the town was putting pressure on the owners of dilapidated buildings through the town’s ordinance, and had also passed a new rental registry ordinance that would give the town more tools to put pressure on landlords and drug-dealing tenants. “We cannot arrest our way out of this problem,” said Morris. “It has to be a community effort. The users enable the drug problem to flourish.”
The message of last night to be positive seems to have had an impact. There are no negative comments to this story, or to the one just below about someone giving drugs to a minor. In times past, these stories would have unleashed a whole host of negativity.
ReplyDeleteThe first step is high bails. There's big $ in being a dealer. Anything less than $50,000 is a joke.
ReplyDeleteFolks, if you see a drug deal, call 911 with the license plate numbers. They like the plaza and downtown, so they can blend in with the other traffic. Use your cell phone for something good.
ReplyDeleteThe primary weak link appears to be what happens between the time of the arrest and the trial. Something needs to be carefully crafted which protects the rights of the accused, but does not result in what appears to be something of a farcical situation where people who violate conditions of release, are released again on conditions. Not sure what the solution is but until this problem is addressed, I would predict that community frustration will remain high and you will see a resumption of negative comments.
ReplyDeleteAlpin Jack, your observation is absolutely correct. The problem is m-o-n-e-y. The courts don't have it. When a person's been arrested and booked, he then gets arraigned. If we had twice as many judges, we could have twice as many arraignment days. My understanding is that in WRJ, all arraignments are on Tuesdays, so a guy arrested on a Wednesday is already six days removed from the arrest. At arraignment, the case is put on the calendar-- and if we had twice as many courts and court personnel, we wouldn't have cases languishing. By the time a guy actually appears in court, he might be removed from his arrest by as much as a year or more.
DeleteThis is a clear hindrance to the proven effectiveness of speedy punishment effecting better future behavior.
At least the Vermont Senate is not behaving like the US Senate in refusing to confirm judicial appointments, so we're not faced-- like the Feds-- with a judicial crisis at the state level-- but even our state system is at best anemic, badly understaffed and not serving us as well as it used to in many ways.
The m-o-n-e-y problem is due to the fact that we send all of it to that three-letter sinkhole: D-o-C. Take some away from DOC and give it to the cops and the courts and the community.
ReplyDeleteActually, that is part of the problem. Vermont has limited capacity in its Women's Prison so there is a tendency not to lock anyone up pending trial. The whole release on conditions situation is driven in part because of budget austerity. No point in having cops arrest people if they are right back out on the streets the next day. There may be some other measures that could be used to tighten things up. One would be legalizing marijuana so those people aren't taking up prison space, although that maybe relieved somewhat with the decriminalization.
DeleteChuck's answer is always take more money away from the hard working tax payer and give it to the government to solve the problems. Take away the high costs of the jails, redirect those funds to the courts. Jails should have zero TV, no weight training rooms. Just hammers and a pile of rocks to use them on.
Delete7:43, the average CEO does not work 240 times harder than the average worker, but that is the difference in pay. The 600 Walton heirs do not work more hours than the bottom 40% of Americans, but they have the same amount of wealth as them. Nor does that 40% get as much notice from their political representatives as the Waltons etc., do. By using an equitable tax policy to reduce income inequality, we remove the mystique the 1% has of being a super-race with all the answers for us penny groundlings.
DeleteI am not in favor of taxing anyone who works hard or actually works 240 times harder than the average worker. Please point the latter out to me. You should think about where you're coming from with that characterization
I have been a CEO and I earned much more then the employees. Did I work harder? Hopefully, everyone worked hard. However, if my employee made a mistake it wouldn't have been that detrimental to the remaining 600+ employees. If I made an error, people’s lives changed. I deserved, as other decent CEO’s do, a much higher salary then the ones that have the luxury of not bearing such a burden / responsibility.
DeleteUsers will ALWAYS ALWAYS find a supplier. It doesn't have to be in Vermont. They will go above and beyond to find someone,anyone who will give them what they need. I'm not sure what has to be done. I know the drug busts are a start. It's just frustrating to see that they get out quick stop for a day or so and then go right back at it. What about a neighborhood watch? Maybe it would help. Maybe not. Something is better than nothing. I know there are sooo many people trying already.
ReplyDeleteThere is also the issue of due process allowing the defense attorneys to develop their case. That is one of the things that makes the US what the US is...innocent until proven guilty. But, agreed that steps could be taken to shorten the time between arrest and trial, and that it is partly due to lack of resources within the court system.
ReplyDeleteWe need to go back to hard labor camps for first offenders
ReplyDeleteIt might help to take the "big" money out of the problem. If we give them a daily dose that they are required to get it would be cheaper. Users would not have to steal to get the money to buy drugs. Dealers would go away because no one would need to buy from them. It would be cheaper for the state to provide clean drugs in the right dose then to lock users up and/or fight drug related crimes. It would have to be a federal program or Vermont might be in danger of getting all the addicts. All but the most addicted are able to work and are very low risk employees if their habit is feed. If a court or doctor ordered prescription was required, a national database of people required to have the shot daily was kept, addicts could get their shot at an hospital or approved outlet. Their is no need to steal to support a habit or for street dealers. If we don't have dealers we don't have to have space to lock them up. It may sound crazy but it is way cheaper then what we do now and I bet over time we would have fewer addicts because no one would be pushing new people to buy. Just thinking...
ReplyDeleteThat concept worked with alcohol-- Prohibition of alcohol in the 20's made alcohol sales so profitable it spurred the proliferation and professional organization of criminal activity. When it was repealed, alcohol-related gangsterism shriveled up and blew away (of course, the crooks Prohibition bred simply moved on to other activities; thank you, Volstead Act!).
DeleteOf course, alcohol remains a problem, but families are not afraid to let their doctors, minister, counselor or the law know that they have a member with a problem. Nobody's home gets raided because someone in it is a drunk. There is no reason why we shouldn't decriminalize substance abuse while enforcing the laws against behavior that results from substance abuse.
Well, there is a reason-- the billions of dollars of tax money we give to for-profit prison corporations and all the anti-drug law enforcement programs...
Legalize Ibogaine, the 48 hour cure for drug addiction. Used in drug treatment centers in Canada and Mexico.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.relfe.com/ibogaine.html
http://torontoibogainecentre.ca/
If you want to cure a problem create a solution theory has been tested and guess what it didnt work we created what some call saboxin and others bute. With the legalization of marijuana think that we could sway people into a cleaner method of getting a fix, so to speak. Tax and sell marijuana and do away with perscription. Not only might it have a possitive impact of financial need, but also on users as a hole. I believe that the use of illict drugs would drop substatially, however, this does not mean that we will completely eradicate use but we can stop younger users by swading them into a beter cleaner way to get "stoned".
ReplyDeleteGood points, 4:27. The underlying issue is the individual's propensity for addiction to whatever substance: For lack of technology American Indians used tobacco to get high before they got introduced to firewater. Decriminalizing weed and so forth is not going to reduce the problem of addiction, but it would lessen the amount of crime associated with it and permit acquaintances to openly seek help for someone with a problem.
ReplyDeleteAs with tobacco and alcohol, with prevention education, sufficiently stiff penalties and recovery programs in place, addicted users would be presented with strong reasons to deal with their addiction. It's about the best we can hope for, but it's certainly better than feeding the drug cartels the way we do now.
Legalization of marijuana would also break the connection between marijuana and the people pushing the hard stuff. Decriminalization doesn't do that, we need legalization to disconnect the marketing chain.
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