Starve The Enemy

The FBI recently reported that 80% of the crime in the US is committed by gangs. Yet, this is coming after decades of astronomical increases in funding for law enforcement, and serious compromises of the Constitution. Indeed, the most powerful weapon in the government's arsenal is RICO, who's constitutionality is, at best, questionable. Still the only solutions ever proposed is more money spent and less rights for everyone.

So what is the solution? The surest way to deprive the gangs of funding. What is their principle form of funding? The illegal sale of drugs. While they may engage in high-profile robberies and other crimes, for the majority of gangs, the bread and butter support is wholesale or retail sale of drugs. Without these profits, the gangs, and correspondingly the crime they commit will shrink. This is on top of the violence that substitutes for the rule of law in the drug economy. When you can't go to a court to enforce a contract, you are forced to go to a gun. With legalization, all of that violence disappears overnight.

The saddest part is that we've already been through this once. Prohibition of alcohol had roughly commiserate effects. The criminals made windfall profits, while crime skyrocketed along the same lines. They caught on more quickly back then, and reversed Prohibition after only 13 years. Here is what one of the most successful men in American history, John D. Rockefeller, who had originally supported Prohibition, said at its end:

"When Prohibition was introduced, I hoped that it would be widely supported by public opinion and the day would soon come when the evil effects of alcohol would be recognized. I have slowly and reluctantly come to believe that this has not been the result. Instead, drinking has generally increased; the speakeasy has replaced the saloon; a vast army of lawbreakers has appeared; many of our best citizens have openly ignored Prohibition; respect for the law has been greatly lessened; and crime has increased to a level never seen before."