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Some authorities consider their efforts futile. "In law enforcement, I don't think we're having an effect," says Ken Walton, a former Detroit FBI agent. "I don't see anything positive on the horizon. I see no good news." Says DEA Agent Stutman: "Essentially, law enforcement can only provide holding action until treatment and prevention make a difference."
Treating crack addicts can be as Sisyphean a task as busting crack dealers. There are thousands of excellent treatment centers across the country, but like the nation's prisons they are filled beyond capacity. Administrators at J-CAP, the Queens program that treats Jeff Woodberry, interview 20 prospective clients for every one they have room to take in. Only the most seriously addicted are admitted. Even the graduates of the best programs have a 50% chance of relapse. Says Ray Diaz, director of youth treatment at the Promesa center in the Bronx: "They need out-programs, often for the rest of their lives."
School officials say they are suffering from a glut, not a lack, of educational programs aimed at crack. "We almost have programs running out of our ears," says Emeral Crosby, principal of Detroit's Pershing High. "We've got churches, youth foundations and charity organizations working with us. Everybody is just pounding the kids all day long." Yet the older drug dealers are winning the war for the hearts and minds of too many children. When impoverished youngsters see $100 bills waved under their noses, it is hard for them to turn away. Says Dr. Robert Millman, director of drug-and-alcohol-ab use services at New York Hospital: "Just saying no doesn't cut it. The poor ask, 'What can we just say yes to?' "
Right now, not much. Not jobs: while manufacturing employment has declined in the past seven years, the Reagan Administration has gutted the budget for training and employment programs, which provided crucial assistance to disadvantaged young people. The minimum wage, adjusted for inflation, is at its lowest level since 1955; in cities like New York and Los Angeles, minimum- wage service jobs will hardly pay for food and clothing, let alone an apartment and a car. Between 1979 and 1987, the number of hourly workers toiling at less than poverty-level wages ($9,464 for a family of three) jumped from 2.8 million to 15 million.
Not education: total spending on public schools in California has declined from 4.9% of personal income in 1978 to 3.4% today, while enrollment has climbed rapidly. Reading scores among high school seniors in California have declined annually since 1975, particularly in the inner-city schools that supply recruits for gangs like Los Angeles' Crips. In higher education, federal aid to college students -- grants, work-study jobs, student loans -- dropped 16% from 1980 to 1987, while the cost of college has nearly doubled. The number of blacks in college declined by 26,000 between 1980 and 1986, reversing a steady increase.