BRATTLEBORO — I look forward to the second installment of Allison Teague's series on Vermont's opioid problem. She raised some troubling points that many of us who work in social services have been aware of for the past 15 years or so.
Agencies, landlords, and other service providers are indeed familiar with the scenario of out-of-state drug dealers coming to Vermont and entering into relationships with young women who often have low self-esteem, moving in with them, often in subsidized housing, and then dealing drugs.
Drug dealers also send women and children to Vermont, and they are homeless upon arrival, very compliant and seemingly motivated, and thus high-priority placements for housing agencies. Some time after they are placed in housing, up comes their husband, uncle, cousin, or other male relative, who moves in, often illegally, and begins selling drugs.
These drug dealers are by and large bereft of conscience, often quite violent, and leave a trail of despair, addiction, and broken lives in their wake. Agencies like the one I work for very often see the girlfriend become homeless with her children due to the criminal activity in her apartment.
I have recently heard people in law enforcement and substance-abuse treatment state that we can neither “arrest or treat” our way out of the problem, and I think there's truth in both statements.
However, the hardened criminals who increasingly are wreaking havoc in Vermont understand and respect little beyond who has power and the will to wield it.
Which brings us to Vermont's famously lenient judicial system.
As the Teague article points out, the overwhelming “consequence” imposed on drug dealers and, for that matter, criminals of a wide variety of stripes - including those who sexually prey on children - is to be “released on conditions.”
If I had $100 for every battered woman I've encountered in my career, every abused child, every person who has had his or her life impacted negatively by someone who should have been incarcerated but was not, I might be part of the “1 percent.”
In my opinion, judges who regularly release habitual criminals on conditions they have no respect for and regularly violate are in dereliction of their duty to protect the public.
On June 10, about 100 or so yards from my office in Springfield, one person was shot and two others were beaten with a baseball bat. Two people were just arrested and - yep! - they are from New Jersey and reputedly connected to the Bloods gang.
One of the men arrested in this incident had also been arrested just five days ago for an assault in town and, yes, he was released on conditions.
The brother of one of those arrested fired five rounds at a man a year ago in broad daylight just off of Main Street in Springfield.
A year ago, my 18-year-old son, who has lived in Brattleboro his entire life, spent a year in a large city in Germany. I asked him if he felt safe there and his response was, “A lot safer than I feel in Brattleboro.”
When I inquired why that was, he said, “Dad, over here everyone knows [that] if you commit a crime the police are coming to arrest you, you are going to court and then you are going to jail. So people pretty much behave themselves.”
Interesting concept: consequences for criminal behavior.