How Drug-Free School Zones Backfired [theatlantic.com]

Alicia Doktor 12/21/174:00 AM

In 1970 a new trend in narcotics law began to spread: Legislators began creating Drug Free School Zones, imposing harsh penalties on drug crimes committed within them. The theory behind these zones was straightforward: kids are the last people we want drug dealers to target; schoolyards are the last place we want them plying their violent trade; so why not create an incentive to keep drugs elsewhere? “Drug-free zones around schools offer communities one way to give students a place where they can play and talk without being threatened by drug dealers and drug users,” one sheriff’s department declares on its webpage.

Then the same webpage offers some confounding advice:

Don't stop at the school's boundaries. Expand your drug-free zone efforts to any area besieged by problems associated with drug and alcohol abuse.

[For more on this story by CONOR FRIEDERSDORF, go to https://www.theatlantic.com/po...school-zones/548714/]

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