Buying and selling crack cocaine in central Brixton

[Anna Key]

Lambeth has the highest level of crack cocaine usage in Britain - source given below.

Here are the most recent police stats I can find for central Brixton - if they can be believed and haven't changed since they were published (June 2002):-

- 15 dealers during the day
- 20+ throughout the night
- Each selling 100 rocks per week at c. £10 each
- Meaning the central Brixton crack cocaine market is worth c. £12m per year
- A central Brixton crack dealer has a 1:85 chance of being arested per year.

Current police tactics require at least eight officers per arrest. So if police decided to arrest 10% of central Brixton crack dealers they'd need some 6,700,000 extra hours of officer time. Paddick's cannabis experiment liberated 1,350 hours.

So to arrest all central Brixton crack dealers, and to keep arresting their replacements, would require over half a billion extra officer hours.

A police officer works about 40 hours per week (2080 hours per year). S/he costs at least £30,000 per year (including pension, employer's NI etc).

So to abolish crack cocaine dealing in central Brixton, via a law and order response, would require some 250,000 extra police officers at a cost of some £7,500,000,000.

That's roughly one police officer for each member of Lambeth's population.

Source (http://observer.guardian.co.uk/drugs/story/0,11908,742364,00.html)

So the law and order response to crack cocaine dealing and usage in central Brixton is an almost total failure.

Sure, some dealers are busted, some crack houses raided and some of the numerous remaining dealers (or their replacements) displaced to other neighbourhoods - Gipsy Hill at present I believe.

But the law and order response, if the stats are to be believed, just skims the surface of the problem.

And it is a problem. The supply of crack by gangsters ruins lives, torments (predominantly working class) neighbourhoods and encourages young men to shoot each other and, occasionally, innocent passers by.

Logically there are three remaining options:

1. Do nothing. Just let the problem rip. Send in a few cops to stop the worst excesses, e.g. dealers taking over the homes of vulnerable people to turn them into crack houses.

2. Legalise or decriminalise crack cocaine sale and consumption. (There goes David Blunkett, flying past my window astride a large pink pig.)

3. Put money and effort into civil programmes designed to discourage crack cocaine sale and usage.

As a central Brixton resident I'm not aware of any high profile civil programmes being run in the neighbourhood. There's the Crack Out campaign but my only contact with this has been to read the policy statement (http://www.lambeth.gov.uk/intradoc/groups/public/documents/notes/015703.pdf) and seeing some beautifully designed postcards in the library.

Where are the outreach workers? Where is the local drop-in centre? Where are the primary health care professionals handing out condoms to crack whores? Where are the halfway houses? Where are the Council workers on Saturday mornings distributing leaflets to shoppers telling them (us) what's going on?

Have I missed something?

[lang rabbie]

So if police decided to arrest 10% of central Brixton crack dealers they'd need some 6,700,000 extra hours of officer time.

I don't think that computes - surely it assumes that the metaphorical figure of 1,000 crack dealers mentioned by Brian Moore are infinitely renewed despite the change of policing tactics.

And surely we should be discussing the other option raised at the end of the article, not dismissing it out of hand...

In the latest twist, Moore is calling for new police powers to allow him to detain suspects who are believed to have swallowed crack until the drugs pass out of their systems.

'These are the powers that customs officers have. When you walk though an airport you don't see customs officers rolling around on the floor with people trying to force their mouths open, yet they deal with people who have swallowed drugs every day. They simply detain them and let nature take its course. If we had the same powers, we would be far more effective.'

There are enormous and legitimate concerns about deaths in police custody, but it strikes me that a properly planned "custody suite" as cell blocks are now termed, providing that it had 24 hour medical support, could take far more of these dealers off the streets.

[pooka]

1. I'd say the position has changed markedly since June 2002.

3. I'm struggling a bit with your arithmetic - could you set it out more clearly?

4. Drugs projects/places dealing with users in the area, described by Rebecca Walker of Lambeth DAT, at last month's CPCG meeting:

St Mungo's
Stockwell Drugs Project
SMART Streatham
Harbour Project (new project in Brixton for Crack users)
Marina House (Maudsley)

Lambeth DAT work with the Community Drug Education Project (http://www.drugsinfo.org.uk/aboutus.htm), for providing information and education. Last I heard, they were opening a market stall as an information point in Brixton. That may be more cost effective than Council workers handing out leaflets.

Generally, it's not always best to rely on the national media for information about your locality - that article in the Observer was particularly slanted and sensational anyways.
A police officer works about 40 hours per week (2080 hours per year).

That's 52 weeks - no holidays? Blimey, you lefties know a thing or two about exploitation! ;)

[hatboy]

"Where are the outreach workers? Where is the local drop-in centre? Where are the primary health care professionals handing out condoms to crack whores? Where are the halfway houses? Where are the Council workers on Saturday mornings distributing leaflets to shoppers telling them (us) what's going on?"

I think some of that stuff is going on. A poster here (no longer active) told me by PM that he was a drug out-reach worker (or similar) for a project in Brixton. I did know where it was (Stockwell Road?) but have forgotten.

But yeah, more could be done. And I don't think the answer is more and more police.

Has the crack problem, which afew years ago seemed to have pretty much taken over half the lives of Brixton and Peckham, got better? I can't tell whether it is better or whether I'm just not seeing it now because I'm not seeing the same people socially or because it's been displaced elsewhere? And I don't just mean what you can see at 4am on the street. I mean behind closed doors.

[hatboy]

Oh yeah "Harbour Project". Good. :)

[Anna Key]

I'm struggling a bit with your arithmetic - could you set it out more clearly?
The maths is Cmdr Brian Moore's. And you're right. It doesn't add up:
We have 15 dealers during the day and up to 20 throughout the night. They each sell 100 rocks per week at £10 a time. It means the centre of Brixton alone is a crack market worth £12 million each year. The level of demand means that even if we arrested 1,000 dealers, they'd be replaced by 1,000 new ones the next day. (Moore quote)
Which means 35 dealers per 24 hour period, each shifting 100 rocks @ £10 each per week.

= 35 X 100 X 10 X 52

= £1,670,000 per annum.

So I don't know where he gets his £12m central Brixton figure. According to his own calculation he's out by a factor of almost ten. Also, crack dealers have overheads so its not pure profit.

I mentioned these figures to someone yesterday who spends his whole life watching the street in central Brixton. He laughed and said most crack dealers don't make enough money in an average evening for a tin of lager and a chinese meal.

And most of their sales are not crack cocaine but bags of weed (or 'weed') to drugs tourists who have difficulty finding a supplier after purchasing a new flat in Clapham.

But the press, and coppers after budget increases, love to go on about how much money the crack dealers are making. It sells newpapers - 'dangerous Brixton' stories - and muscles-up police budget/numbers negotiations.

Also where are these 35 round-the-clock crack dealers? I don't see them.
Generally, it's not always best to rely on the national media for information about your locality - that article in the Observer was particularly slanted and sensational anyways.
Of course. But presumably the word of Brixton's Chief Copper is to be trusted? Unless he was misquoted. Given the problems with his maths, maybe he was.

[detective-boy]

In any calculation like this it is important to look at the assumptions:

1. 15 dealers during day / 20+ at night: At the very busiest moments maybe. On average? I would say more like five.

2. Each selling 100 rocks per week: You've seen those adverts for getting rich quick "Work from home, earn £1000 per week". Probably theoretically possible. But most street dealers sell until they've got enough to fund their own supply or whatever. I'd be surprised if, on average, each dealer sold more than 25 rocks per week.

3. Each rock costs £10: Sounds about right (and suggests that supply is outstripping demand)

So, using my assumptions, the market is £62,500.

That said, we've looked at one drug, in one area. Take the national market for all drugs and we do have a multi-million industry (worldwide I think only arms dealing outstrips it). And once you put that amount of money into an illegal activity it becomes a danger to worldwide stability / order.

IMHO, Anna Key's Option 2 (legalise) is the only option likely to deliver anything like an actual impact.

[Anna Key]

So, using my assumptions, the market is £62,500.
Bit different from £12m. :rolleyes:

So Commander Moore was wrong (unless misquoted) by a factor of 99.9%. I've not got a calculator or pen and paper with me - what is 62,500 divided by 12,000,000 times 100?

It's a shame when the subject's so important that disinformation is floating around.

[pooka]

Well, I was struggling primarily with the calculation about numbers of officers which reduces prety quickly to absurdum, namely that it would take 250,000 officers or 4 for each of the 60,000 souls in Brixton to deal with the problem! There clearly is a calculation that could be done, but it's not the one this journalist did.

But you're right also about the estimates of the size of the market. I think this is down to a combination of:

(1) A sensationalist journalist wanting to cash in on the "Brixton Drug Capital" mania that was about at the time - the article repreated the Cannabis Trial falsehoods (increased drug tourists, stoned kids, black people didn't support the trial) and a dozen or so people off U75 had a letter (http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4451446,00.html) published the next week refuting it.

(2) Brian Moore seeking to capitialise from the media attention both to raise the issue of dealing with drug swallowers (which is clearly a serious one) and also no doubt to paint a grim picture, both to enhance his position in getting resources but equally with possible spin off for his career, given that he'd just taken over the command.

That said, various estimates of the market across Brixton (and Lambeth for that matter) do claim it's multi-million pound, which is why various peeps are arguing that assets seized from drug dealers should be ploughed back into the communities they're found in, rather than disappearing into the Treasury. Clearly, there's a continuum between the town centre and the rest of the town, especially the estates and it's a bit artificial to estimate the, separately.

I must admit I have a queasyness about the idea of legalising crack.

Edited to add:

Looking back at the article,

If there are 35 dealer.equivalents operating hroughout the week (ie they may be 35 individuals working the whole week, or many more individuals between them keeping a manning of 35) and each makes £1,000/week then the weekly turnover is £35k and the annual turnover is 52 x £35k or £1.82m.

The journalist's £12m is roughly 7 times that, which is because he's assumed it's a different 35 individuals each day, but then attributed a whole weekly (£1k) income to each of them.

Yet another example of the innumeracy of journalists - is it because so many of them are English/Eng Lit/Media Studies graduates?

[Lazy Llama]

15 dealers during the day
20+ throughout the night

Current police tactics require at least eight officers per arrest. So if police decided to arrest 10% of central Brixton crack dealers they'd need some 6,700,000 extra hours of officer time. Paddick's cannabis experiment liberated 1,350 hours.


Some screwy maths here? 10% of 35 dealers, that's 3.5, let's round it up to umm...4 will take 6.7 million hours of officer time? 1.5 million hours each? 170 man years per arrest. Yeah right...

Maybe every one of the 260,000 residents is a crack dealer? So you'd be arresting 26,000. So if you spend 300 hours per arrest, you get the number they first thought of. So someone seems to be making the assumption that everyone in Lambeth is a crack dealer. Which is nice.

So who manages the budgets? And would they like to buy a calculator?

[Epona]

Some screwy maths here? 10% of 35 dealers, that's 3.5, let's round it up to umm...4 will take 6.7 million hours of officer time? 1.5 million hours each? 170 man years per arrest. Yeah right...


Well I know they complain about paperwork, but that's ridiculous! :D

[newbie]

Have there been any developments in Moore's campaign to change the law about swallowing? Being part of a crowd watching an arrest, with a vanload of cops rolling around in the dirt scrabbling at a blokes face, and feeling the tension it induces, brings his point into focus.

[Loki]

Well even if they're out by a factor of 100 (250,000 extra police officers at a cost of some £7,500,000,000 is simply ridiculous), still alarming statistics (and good to see you about detective boy).

[tobyjug]

What most people don't seem to realise that since the police have had their hands tied behind their backs with various acts of parliament they only get out on the streets for 2 hours out of an 8 hour shift. The rest of the time they spend filling out paperwork.
What is not needed is more police, the police need less paperwork.

[Loki]

I would think most people know that.

[detective-boy]

I've been trying to work out how they ever got to that figure of 6.7m additional hours required to arrest 10% of the dealers.

I agree that uniformed police arrest tactics may require 8 officers (it looks bad having a number of officers involved but it usually ensures less injuries on each side) ... but not for long. Lets deconstruct it:

1. Briefing, etc. : Say 1hr x 8 officers = 8hrs
2. Pre-arrest observation : Say 2hrs x 8 officers = 16hrs
3. Arrest itself : Say 1hr x 8 officers = 8hrs
4. Booking prisoner into custody, listing property, etc. :
Say 2hrs x 8 officers = 16 hrs
5. Making notes and statements of arrest : Say 3hrs x 8 officers = 24hrs
6. Searching prisoner's address : Say 3hrs x 8 officers = 24hrs
7. Interviewing prisoner : Say 2hrs x 2 officers = 4hrs
8. Submitting drugs for immediate analysis : Say 4hrs x 1 officer = 4hrs
9. Charging prisoner (inc. photos, etc) : Say 2hrs x 2 officers = 4hrs
10. Preparing case file for CPS : Say 4hrs for 2 officers = 8hrs
11. Miscellaneous form filling : Say 10hrs
12. Dealing with memoranda from CPS : Say 16hrs x 2 officers = 32hrs
13. Attending Court : Say 16hrs x 8 officers = 32hrs

Total per crack prisoner, from briefing to trial : 190hrs

In all the above assumptions I've been very generous - if officers of mine had taken as long as I've allowed for the different bits of the process they'd have known all about it!! I'd be surprised if competent officers would take more than 100hrs, if that.

But anyway, looking from this angle, to arrest 3.5 dealers per day, for 365 days of the year, would need some 243,000 (190 x 3.5 x 365) additional officer hours. Assuming 250 days of 8 hours this would mean some 122 (243,000 divided by 8, divided by 250) additional officers.

Erm. 122. A bit different from the 25,000 additional officers needed to arrest 10% of dealers on an ongoing basis.

The bureaucracy is bad ... but it's not that baaaadd!!

[Gramsci]

Walking into my local newsagent today in CHL I overheard 2 police officers telling a couple of guys to move on.When they argued the officers said they knew they were obviously selling drugs so just push off.Actually I think the officers were right you can pick the dealers out when you walk down CHL.

Another thing dealers do is hid the gear nearby-in a crack in a wall etc-so they dont carry on their person if stopped.

I am a bit confused about the various polls on the Paddick experiment-the Observor article quotes one and the letter linked by Pooka quotes another.What I dislike is the argument trotted out on a regular basis that black and white Brixtonians have opposed attitudes to the Paddick experiment.Also class gets thrown in as well.Its white middle class liberals who supported the experiment and black/working class people who opposed it is the line taken.Their is something nauseating and insidously right wing about this kind of argument.Its often used by right wing commentators/New Labour types on "law and order" issues and "asylum seekers".

The trouble with Crack addicts is that they only seek help when they are really desparate.Their is also an assumption that its a drug of "deprived areas".This may not necessarily be correct(I need to check this).

All serious drug addictions damage health.The main reason Crack is a problem is its illegality and cost.An alcoholic can subsidise his/her addiction by begging/the Social not burglary etc.Alcohol is a legal drug so organised crime/gun crime is not involved.It seems to me that legalisation/decriminalisation is the way forward.The American hard line on drugs does not solve the problem.The supposedly discredited "British System" kept the Herion population of the UK in check in the 60s.

[detective-boy]

Their is also an assumption that its a drug of "deprived areas".This may not necessarily be correct(I need to check this).

There is a particular addictiveness to crack - it developed from ordinary cocaine use as it provides a more immediate / intense high. For this reason more and more of the drug is needed and, even if you start out middle-class, you soon end up in a "deprived area" having lost your job / family / house / friends / status, etc. (I've met several people like this over the years, occasionally one pops up writing an article in the Sunday supplements, etc.).

In fact, notwithstanding my general belief that legalising all drugs is the only way to take money and power from organised crime, you may convince me that crack is so destructive that it should remain illegal (like a couple of other drugs where their impact is disproportionately destructive - angel dust (PCP) springs to mind). Perhaps law enforcement could succeed in controlling a handful of illegal drugs if the rest were legalised.