Get Out of the Game: Stop Killing People
By Colleen Copple, CCDO Consultant
Baltimore newspapers are buzzing about the "Get Out of the Game" project that the Baltimore Police Department is taking to some of the city's most drug-involved areas.
Get Out of the Game is a partnership between the police department and a handful of service providers—people who are committed to tackling the city's toughest cases. Officers wearing black T-shirts with "Get Out of the Game" written across the front and "Stop the Killing" written across the back engage drug dealers and drug addicts like street-corner missionaries. The idea is to offer options—drug treatment, a high school education, housing, and job placement—for ex-offenders through the STRIVE Baltimore program.
STRIVE is a nonprofit job training and placement agency that specializes in assisting individuals who have trouble gaining employment. Introduced in East Harlem, NY, in 1985, the agency has branches in 20 cities across the United States and a branch in London, England. Its core curriculum is a 1-month job readiness program that emphasizes the soft skills necessary to obtain employment, including accountability, responsibility, and personal growth. Following this course, participants are monitored for at least 2 years. STRIVE has trained more than 2,000 Maryland residents since it came to Baltimore in 1998.
Through Get Out of the Game, police encourage hardcore drug offenders to change their lives. They do not make their agenda obvious and are careful to let people save face on the street. Officers simply leave their business cards and tell the offenders that they can call for help when they are ready.
Baltimore has good reason to be concerned about the violent crime associated with drugs; statistics reveal that the city has between 200 and 300 homicides per year. The recidivism rate for ex-offenders statewide is about 50 percent, and more than half of all criminals released annually from Maryland prisons return to areas with Baltimore ZIP Codes.
That's why Police Commissioner Leonard Hamm came up with the program. Having spent many years on Baltimore's streets as a beat cop, he believes there is hope for each drug addict. Frontline cops such as Keith Harrison, recently named the Baltimore Sun's Police Officer of the Year, are deeply committed to spreading the gospel of change at the epicenter of Maryland's drug-and-crime problem. They've engaged hundreds of men and women since the program began in 2005, referring drug dealers, addicts, and other ex-offenders to agencies that can help them get clean and get straight.
The work isn't about arrests; it's about rescuing people, saving lives, and breaking the cycle of crime and drugs. One way officers accomplish these goals is by distributing leaflets that give information on a new 24-hour hotline that offers "an alternative to a life of crime and regret."
"Are you afraid to leave home without your weapon?" one leaflet asks. "Is your supplier threatening to cut you off and up? Do you spend more time with your lawyer than your family? Does your family ask you to stay away from them?" An affirmative answer to any of those questions, the leaflet states, means it's time to find a new career.
Sometimes officers approach groups of young men; sometimes they take a one-on-one approach. Sometimes they get a positive reaction, and sometimes they get a grunt. Sometimes a young man will show no interest in the offer but will call one of the officers as soon as an hour, or a day, later.
Get Out of the Game's target is the chronically at-risk 14- to 24-year-old male, but officers in the unit offer services to older men and women, too.
"Selling drugs is all about survival for a lot of these guys," said Major Rick Hite. "We want to dismantle the idea that it's their only means of survival."
For more information, contact:
Officer Robert Horne
Community Affairs Division
Baltimore Police Department
410-396-2372
