"The mindset of the drug dealer needs confronted, not cuddled.  Their exaggerated sense of self-importance, needs addressed, not affirmed.  Their minimization of their crimes against humanity - their own neighborhoods, families and children, needs exposed, not excused. As change agents, to do this then we may stand a chance to empower the drug dealer to be reformed, instead of enabling the dealer to be recycled in and out of our prisons and communities." - M.A.

My contact with the inner city drug dealers have spanned over seventeen years working in corrections from being a social worker and college teacher in a maximum security prison to an inner city parole officer to my current position as a chemical dependency counselor in a multiple county region within my state. Within this territory there are over 5,000 offenders under supervision, including both rural, as well as major urban populations.  Within my urban populations can be found the typical inner city drug problems including the drug dealers -- the focus of this article. The premise of this article is that maybe we, both corrections and treatment professionals, need to look at offenders, and in particular, drug dealers in a different way.  Stanton E. Samenow, in his break-through work, Inside the Criminal Mind, states, "the failure of our society to deal with crime is obvious.  Without fresh thinking...criminals will continue to think and behave like criminals, whether incarcerated or not..."  This article, for some, may be a call for  "fresh thinking." 

In the fields of corrections and chemical dependency treatment, it is preaching to the choir, so-to-speak, to talk about the seriousness of the drug problem in urban areas. While we, either the parole officer or treatment counselor, work with it daily, the residents of these communities live with it daily.  From the young drug dealers on the street corners, parks or schoolyards, to the crack house down the street, to the neighbor's son doing time for a drug charge, the law-abiding citizens are being held hostage in their own homes. These citizens do not need to see statistics to know there is a major problem surrounding them. For too many, in spite of the best efforts of local and county law enforcements, community block watches, etc., the problem is of epidemic proportions. 

Two different local news pieces I heard recently come to mind. The first was an evening television news story of a twelve-year-old boy arrested for selling drugs in school.  For some communities, it is sad to say, that this is not anything new.  The second local story was of an elderly woman that feels like a hostage in her own community because of the drug dealers and drug activity that surrounds her home. She's afraid to walk the dog or walk to the corner market. Unfortunately, she's not alone. For some inner city communities, the drug dealers and drug activity have transported the law-abiding citizens into what may be compared to a war zone.  Regardless, if this is an accurate portrayal of drug infested communities, it is how some living in the midst of the gunshots, assaults, murders and numerous property crimes linked to the drug activity, feel.

Besides the personal, human cost to the immediate victims of drug activity, there is a tremendous social cost for everyone, including the taxpayers who fund this on-going 'war on drugs.' Among the social cost indicators is the national crowding of our jails and prisons.  Local county jails are dealing with ever-growing jail populations.  Ohio has one of the largest state prison systems with 32 bulging (123% capacity) prisons housing some 44,126 inmates. As is typical with any correctional system, the majority of offenders are drug related.  Other social costs include our hospital emergency rooms with the drug addicted uninsured with their multiply health issues and the multiple victims of drug related violence.  There are also the social service and treatment needs of a large addicted population.  The personal, economic and social costs of this epidemic are staggering. As correctional professionals entrusted with public safety, we are called to intervene, but as Stanton E. Samenow states in his book, "Inside the Criminal Mind" if we don't approach this problem with "fresh thinking... they will extract an ever higher toll from us in lives, physical injury, emotional scars, property loss, and damage..."

With the above summary of problems associated with drug activity that those of us in the field of corrections are keenly aware of, let us move onto the center of this discussion -- the drug dealer. Sometimes, we professionals can get caught up in the "what came first--the chicken or the egg" argument as "what came first -- the addict or the dealer?"  Likewise, in the 'war on drugs' perspective, it's a version of the 'supply or demand' debate.  Some say we need to focus on the addict not the dealer, while others say the opposite.  To an extent, some excuse or at least minimize the dealer's culpability by asserting in essence that it is not the dealer's fault. They present versions of the argument that he is a victim of social forces, i.e., poverty, joblessness or discrimination, such as: he is supplying a need that is already there; the poor dealer is making a 'living' the only way he knows how; or he is a misplaced entrepreneur.  The latter explanation is, I believe, a slanted strength based case-management view.

Who then is the drug dealer, but more specifically, for the purposes of this article, the inner city drug dealer? Before I give my view, I will say that the following assertions are generalizations, and like all generalizations, have their exceptions. Also, it is not that I do not understand, nor even agree with some of the above, but I am proposing as Stanton E. Samenow does that the dealer is not a poor, misguided victim of a bad childhood or bad neighborhood.  Rather, he is a scourge to his own community, his own people and to society at large.

Instead of being viewed, or somewhat excused, as a misguided entrepreneur, the dealer is a predator -- a victimizer. Indeed, going back to my title, he can be viewed as a modern day vampire, sucking the life out of those around him and his communities. If it were politically correct to call any one category of criminal offender the old school term of  'scum bag,' I propose that the drug dealer would rank right up there with the child sex offender and adult rapists as that term has been applied to.  I, of course, am not advocating a return to this negative labeling (we do not have to use scum bag, "scourge" is accurate and works quite nicely) but I am making a point of the seriousness of the human victimization and social destruction caused by dealers.

Why this strong stance on drug dealers?  Even though I am a counselor and believe in the general concept of strength based case management, I am first a correctional professional which places me on the front lines of this drug war.  Consequently, I view the drug dealer in perspective of my experience with the chemically dependent and involved clients that I work with.  I view this issue in terms of the seriousness of the enormous devastation that addiction causes to the majority of our offender population, to their families, to their children, to their communities and to our society.

So what do we, as correctional and treatment professionals, do?  The mindset of the drug dealer needs confronted, not cuddled.  Their exaggerated sense of self-importance needs addressed, not affirmed.  Their minimization of their crimes against humanity - their own neighborhoods, families and children, needs exposed, not excused.  As change agents, to do this then we may stand a chance to empower the drug dealer to be reformed, instead of enabling the dealer to be recycled in and out of our prisons and communities. That is the basic stance and theme of this article.  If we, correctional, social service and treatment professionals, are going to effectively intervene in the drug dealer's criminal thinking/behavior patterns, I believe we must adopt these or similar views.
 
What 'needs' need addressed?  Overall, as those of us in corrections and treatment fields are well aware of, our offender population is a multi-need population. The commonly shared immediate needs of the offender population are employment, education, job skills and for some housing.  Many have a need for chemical dependency treatment with the common estimates being from 70 to 80 percent of the offender population are involved with alcohol and drugs. Additionally, smaller percentages have mental health issues as well.  For most, their immediate needs upon release from prison are employment. With the drug dealer who typically has little or no work history, except by supporting himself with illegal drug activity, this obvious and immediate need must be addressed if the dealer is going to be successful in giving up one life style and learn another. We, in our respective systems - corrections and treatment, need to ask ourselves if we do not address these substantial needs, from reception into our prisons, to release into the community, how effective will we be in assisting the drug dealer with their rehabilitation or recovery?

One major need, not as obvious as the above tangible needs of employment, education and job skills, is the psychological  -  the root cause of behavior. We, in corrections and treatment, have traditionally overlooked this need, but are increasingly focusing on this dynamic aspect.  From my experience it appears that in our respective systems, we are embracing the cognitive behavioral theories, and the criminal thinking errors.  In the 'What works literature', treatment approaches based on this model are being promoted and implemented. Addiction guru, Terence T. Gorski states in "Relapse Prevention with Chemically Dependent Criminal Offenders," that "cognitive therapy techniques are directed at changing the irrational thoughts that set offenders up to return to the use of alcohol, drugs, and criminal behaviors." 

The cognitive approaches claim that without changing the thinking patterns, the thinking distortions or errors, behind the dealer's action and lifestyle, the behavior will not likely change.  Stanton E. Samenow, states in his book, "Inside the Criminal Mind," that "how a person behaves is determined largely by how he thinks."  He goes on to say "a surprising number of people who deal with criminals do not know how criminals think."  For correctional professionals, that is our challenge - to learn how the criminal, or more specifically to the discussion here, the drug dealer thinks.

It's the old saying that "what do you get if you sober-up a criminal alcoholic/addict?  A sober criminal."  This is similar if one asks, "what do you get if you get a drug dealer a legitimate job? You get a drug dealer with a (momentary) legitimate job."  To put it in another way, the internal man must change, not just the outward appearance of the man.  The AA program calls it "personality defects".  Some of the, who I refer to as, corrections cognitive theorist, like Samuel Yochelson, Samenow and Gorski place a high importance on understanding and addressing criminal thinking errors and criminal personality disorders. What they all have in common is the sound principal that the thinking behind the behavior must be addressed, if real or lasting change is to take place.

One example of criminal error thinking is the inflated sense of ones own importance. In part, this is just the opposite of the commonly held assumption that offenders suffer from a poor sense of identity or self worth.  Samenow in his book, Straight Talk About Criminals, states, "Those who do not understand how the criminal thinks believe that he suffers from low self-esteem."   In terms of self-esteem, with some drug dealers we need to be aware that they suffer from an inflated sense of their own self-importance.  I believe few who work with drug dealers would disagree with this assumption.  Along with this thinking error, the drug dealer is prone to other criminal thinking errors such as believing others are there to serve them or to be used.

It is the misguided belief by drug dealers that the weak are to be preyed upon.  Behind this thinking error, is a belief in the survival of the fittest. They are entitled to whatever they want, expensive cars, jewelry, women for sex, etc. and they can obtain whatever, in whatever ways they can.  It's the old 'powerful rule' adage.  Of course, the addict falls perfectly into his scheme of victimization.  The addict is the ideal clientele for this dealer of death and destruction from the thirteen year old boy drug runner to the single mother crack addict who does whatever, from leaving her babies alone to engaging in manipulative, unsafe, even deadly (HIV) sex to get her drugs.
 
In closing, I have presented the drug dealer as a predator, a victimizer, a "modern day vampire" who can be argued, sucks the blood, or the very life, out of his victims, i.e., the addicts, families and communities. In this article, I focused on the drug dealer as the center of the widespread devastating effects of drugs in the inner city. Of course, this is not to deny the fact that drug addiction and drug dealers plague all of our communities.  However, the focal point of this article is the drug dealer and offender population from our inner cities that we service.  We cannot afford what I presented here -- a brief case for a misguided approach, or lack thereof, by ignoring, downplaying or mistreating the drug dealer's root problems.
 
Thus, I believe it is paramount, that we, the change agents within the drug dealers life, from the social worker, counselor, minister, teacher, and yes, even correctional officer and parole officer, need to understand the dealer's fundamental problem -- that of criminal thinking errors or disorder. Not to understand this dynamic at each of these respective points of interdiction in the dealer's life, the "helper" becomes an  "enabler."   Instead, of being, as it's been said, part of the solution, we become part of the problem. As professional helpers within the correctional and treatment systems, if we work with the drug dealer based on this understanding, we stand a better chance of intervening in this critical societal problem more effectively.

References:

Samenow, Stanton E., "Inside the Criminal Mind", Crown Business, Random House, New York, New York, 1984.
Samenow, Stanton E. "Straight Talk About Criminals", Jason Aronson Inc, 1998.
Gorski, Terence T. "Relapse Prevention Therapy with Chemically Dependent Criminal Offenders, A Guide for Counselors, Therapists, and Criminal Justice Professionals" The CENAPS Corporation, 1994.

About the Author:

Michael Anderson has been in the field of corrections since 1987.  He is currently a chemical dependency counselor in community corrections serving a multi-county region in Ohio.  He has a master's degree and is a state certified chemical dependency counselor.  He is a trainer in cognitive behavioral therapy for his department.  His prior correction's positions include parole officer, prison social worker and prison college instructor in a maximum-security institution. He worked with death row inmates and was member of the emergency response team as a hostage negotiator.  He has been published professionally in Ohio corrections and treatment newsletters and within his department.  Outside of work, he is a minister with a wedding and ceremonial service and proud father of two children.

The views expressed in this article are the authors and not meant to reflect his employer who is not mentioned for that reason. The author may be reached at his home business email: wedforu2@juno.com