Pubdate: Sun, 25 Sep 2005
Source: Taunton Daily Gazette (MA)
Copyright: 2005 Taunton Daily Gazette
Contact:  http://www.zwire.com/site/news.asp?brd=1711
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2750
Author: Henry Frederick, City Editor
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)

DEWERT AVENUE HOUSING DEVELOPMENT NOT A HOTBED OF CRIME

Let's be real.

Drugs are everywhere.

No community - no matter how rich or poor - is immune from society's ills.

Yes, government subsidized housing projects like Fairfax Gardens on 
DeWert Avenue are breeding grounds for criminals.

In the communities I've covered over the years as a police reporter, 
I've seen my share of so-called housing projects.

There was "the Hill" in Rockland County, N.Y., and "Bethune Village" 
in Daytona Beach, Fla.

Like DeWert, which has close to 300 residents, the above mentioned 
projects I covered were home to predominantly single mothers and 
small children.

Next on the population ranking in these communities? The elderly.

And last, but not least, young men.

The residents who live in public housing are simply poor. That 
doesn't make them criminals. It's easy for police to nab small-time 
peddlers, who because of the law, are back out on the street the next day.

It's like picking apples from a tree.

But the real tough police work is not in DeWert. It's in the rich 
neighborhoods where powdered cocaine, rather than $10 rocks of crack, 
are distributed for big bucks.

Witness country-like Middleboro, where a drug trafficker, who lived 
in a mansion, was dealing millions in cocaine for the past half 
decade before he was finally nailed last May in New York City.

In most of the communities where I worked as a police reporter, the 
high-volume crime totals didn't come from the projects. They came from the mall.
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MAP posted-by: Elizabeth Wehrman