Drugs and crime: intersecting to become economic issue

One of the major issues in this year's election is the drug issue. There are two general approaches to this issue. The conservative approach calls for the use of the U.S. military to interdict the flow of drugs into our country and for the vigorous prosecution of drug dealers and drug abusers. The liberal approach also calls for action to stop drugs from entering the country, but it emphasizes education and rehabilitation, rather than prosecution, for all but the most serious drug offenders. Both approaches have merit, but neither recognizes the basic reason why drugs are such a dominant issue: Drug abuse causes crime — not of the Uzi-blasting type seen on Miami Vice nor even the crime of robbing society of valuable human potential. The crime that the electorate identifies with drugs is less dramatic but more common.

In 1985 our firm, McKeon and Associates, was part of a national polling project commissioned by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to identify trends and issues for the 1986 election cycle. Our analysis of the data showed that in five of seven regions of the country, crime and drug abuse were viewed by voters as the most negative changes taking place in America and as the greatest threats to the respondents' livelihoods and quality of life. Furthermore, we have found that when our firm asks voters open-ended questions — questions to which the respondent is required to tell us what he or she thinks rather than choose from a list — an interesting correlation occurs. It is that when unemployment is the major problem on the minds of voters in a specific area, crime and drugs almost always follow closely on the list of voluntary responses.

The reason for this correlation is the deteriorating economic condition of the middle class. Unemployment and underemployment have forced both husband and wife to work and, in some cases, caused divorce. The effect is that no one is left at home. The home or apartment is unprotected, and the likelihood of burglary increases. These unprotected residences are easy prey for drug abusers in need of quick cash. (Working parents also worry that their "latch-key" children, alone at home, will associate with drug dealers and abusers and fall prey to the drug menace.)

Here, in homes and apartments empty because everyone is out working, is where drugs and crime intersect. The crime that occurs is what law enforcement officials call "smash and run": TVs, VCRs and jewelry quickly grabbed from residences; tape players, radar detectors and sometimes the whole car are the yield when cars are broken into.

The impact of a home invasion, car theft and even of the senseless vandalizing and graffiti-spraying of garages, buildings and parks extends beyond the individual victims. The tremors of such crimes roll through a neighborhood. Tensions fade slowly. Social wounds are opened and heal slowly. People feel more vulnerable, less confident and increasingly angry. Many of them already feel victimized by a transformed national economy, which has wiped out many well-paid manufacturing jobs, substituting lower wage service jobs. When the crime spawned by drugs makes people victims of crime as well as of economics, they are pushed to the breaking point.

Respondents to our surveys express their feelings in many different words, blaming "kids on dope," "drug addicts trying to

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get money to buy drugs" and "hopped-up lunatics." Their anger is heard in their calls for harsh sentences or, in many cases, execution for drug traffickers. Drug users are given scarcely more compassion. The general sentiment is, "If you break the law, you take your chances." (This view changes, however, when the problem of drug abuse comes through one's own back door rather than the neighbor's.)

Most Chicago voters six years ago ranked unemployment and better wages as their foremost concerns. Drugs and crime nuked fourth and fifth. Today, however, 34 to 40 percent of Chicagoans surveyed rank drugs and crime as the top problems in their area. Only 8 to 10 percent say that unemployment is the No. 1 problem. This is true even in parts of Chicago where unemployment has failed to improve or has worsened since 1982.

One explanation for this change in responses is that the longer negative economic conditions persist, the more they are accepted as standard. At the same time, persons suffering from these tough economic conditions increasingly turn to other, often illegal, means to survive. Those who suffer the most, of course, are those people who still have sufficent incomes because they are the ones losing their TVs, car stereos and jewelry to the "smash and ran" burglars. Who do these crime victims blame? The gangs who sell drugs and the abusers who need drugs.

At first glance, this might appear to be only a big city problem. But recent work by our firm in central and western Illinois shows similar survey results: 35 to 40 percent of the downstate respondents name unemployment and better wages as their top concerns. The same surveys found a significant 18 to 22 percent of respondents naming drugs and crime as their top concerns. Clearly, the trend is for voters to see negative economic conditions, crime and drugs as parts of one problem: the endangered safety of the middle class.

Every candidate uses the buzz word "drugs" when campaigning. Few candidates, however, grasp the connection between America's drug problems and the middle class's economic problems. Until candidates see the connection, they will have very little impact on the electorate.□

Michael McKeon is head of McKeon & Associates, a national polling organization.

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