David Kennedy has devoted his life to developing new approaches to curb gun violence and dismantle open drug markets.
In Boston, interventions adopted under Kennedy’s direction led to a 63% decline in youth homicides. And in High Point, N.C., the city almost entirely eliminated open drug use and dealing over three years and saw a steep decline in violent crime, according to studies.
So could Kennedy — a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and founder of the National Network for Safe Communities — help San Francisco eradicate its relentless open-air drug markets?
Some city officials want to find out. …
Supervisor Bilal Mahmood, with the support of Board President Rafael Mandelman and Supervisor Matt Dorsey, will make a formal request to Mayor Daniel Lurie and the board on Tuesday to hire Kennedy as an independent contractor to analyze San Francisco’s open-air drug markets and create an intervention plan tailored to the city. …
Dorsey also plans to introduce legislation Tuesday to codify that the city’s “primary objective” of its drug policies is to stop illicit drug use and help people attain long-term recovery from addiction. The legislation, in part, is meant to address concerns from some residents and city leaders that it is too focused on harm reduction and not enough on treatment. Dorsey made a request in late 2022 to bring in Kennedy, and the professor developed a proposal to address the city’s illicit drug markets, but the deal was never finalized. The estimated cost of the two-year initiative at that time was about $550,000, according to city records…
Kennedy’s strategy — referred to as “Drug Market Intervention” — calls for disrupting the supply of drugs into the market and creating a maintenance plan to ensure the market stays closed. His team saw success in cities like High Point, N.C. and Nashville during the crack epidemic, but he told the Chronicle that addressing San Francisco’s current markets, which are dominated by the sale of the cheap, highly addictive synthetic opioid fentanyl, will likely require its own unique approach.
“I’m not presuming that any of the particular tactics that worked for the crack era markets will work here,” Kennedy said in an interview. “But I wouldn’t be agreeing to work with the city if I didn’t think that there was real promise here.”…
To guide Kennedy’s work, Mahmood is proposing to expand the city’s Drug Market Agency Coordination Center, a public safety interagency task force started under Breed, to a 24/7 operation to arrest more overnight drug dealers. He also wants to see the city add more street ambassadors to deter drug markets from popping up in new areas and increase support for workforce and youth development programs to prevent young people from getting pulled into the drug trade. … (more)
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It was be good see a critique of Kennedy’s work. How successful has his strategy been?