MSU receives funds for drug intervention program

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In a continuing effort to combat violent crime, the U.S. Department of Justice awarded MSU’s School of Criminal Justice $1 million to extend research into training techniques and technical assistance for the Drug Market Intervention, or DMI, program.

The funds come on the tail end of the School of Criminal Justice’s evaluation of the federal program Project Safe Neighborhoods, or PSN.

PSN is coordinated by the 93 U.S. attorney’s offices in the United States and is focused on lowering violent crime through federal prosecution of gun crimes, Assistant U.S. Attorney Phil Green said. Green is the PSN/Anti-Gang coordinator for Michigan’s Western District.

“(PSN) involves a partnership between federal and local authorities where certain cases are referred for federal prosecution,” Green said. “We average between 80 to 100 cases a year.”

Prosecutors use the more severe federal firearm statutes to prosecute violent and deter potential offenders from carrying weapons, he said.

MSU found the program decreased gun crimes 13 percent in 26 cities where the program was rigorously implemented.

Thirty-eight other cities with a lower comparable implementation saw an 8 percent increase in violent crime, School of Criminal Justice Director Edmund McGarrell said.

McGarrell serves as the lead researcher on the evaluation and also will coordinate the project funded by the grant.

The DMI program is a comprehensive effort to close down open-air drug markets — areas where drugs are bought and sold in public view — by effectively focusing area resources.

Those resources include the federal and local authorities, neighborhood organizations, drug rehabilitation and mentoring programs, McGarrell said.

MSU will use funds obtained through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to continue the training and technical assistance initiative of the DMI training program. The goal is to equip communities with the knowledge and skills to implement the DMI model, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

“Over the last several years, DMI developed in a number of communities in the U.S.,” McGarrell said. “The grant
is intended to provide training to another set of cities who want to implement the program.”

Along with training, the money also will enable MSU to provide technical assistance and study the impact of the initiative and associated programs on crime in targeted neighborhoods, McGarrell said.

“The big bulk of (the money) is running the training sessions,” he said. “In between our team stays in touch with each city and monitors the problems and issues they’re dealing with.”

Across town, the city of Lansing received $350,000 to start its own anti-drug program based on DMI.

Coincidentally, the idea to start the program came from a presentation McGarrell gave during a criminal justice course at MSU.

“(Lt. Larry Klaus) was a part of the class and went back to the department with the idea for a new program,” McGarrell said. “He got support form the police chief and some people in the Lansing government and then wrote a proposal to implement the program.”

MSU will evaluate the program and provide technical and logistical support, Klaus said.

“Essentially, they will put data into a map of the city of Lansing and find clusters or hot spots,” he said. “Then we can focus on those hot spots and take out high numbers of repeat offenders and prosecute them federally. For youthful drug offenders, we will try to find mentors from the police department and business communities programs to try and correct criminal behavior.”

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