Eleven more casualties of the un-winnable “War on Drugs”

'''Fierce finger pointing continues unabated in Cleveland as law enforcement and social service agencies, family members, governmental departments, religious institutions, and an entire community attempts to place blame on each other for perhaps the most heinous ongoing crime spree ever perpetrated in the city’s history. The body count of drug-addicted black women currently stands at 11, and now the FBI is involved as attention turns to the vacant house next door to where the first bodies were found. People are praying that no more bodies are discovered, but there is still a long list of Cleveland women missing.

Even Mayor Jackson has a personal connection to the crime since his niece has come forward and admitted that she lived with the alleged killer, Anthony Sowell, for a time last year. The official and community focus, however, still seems to be stuck on exculpation rather than prevention of future tragedies of this kind.

The city prosecutor recently stated that when one woman, Gladys Wade, came forward with charges against Sowell of a attempted rape a few months ago, a city detective said that she wasn’t a credible witness — in spite of blood splatters in the home and other documented evidence. The police chief is now countering that statement by saying that it was the prosecutor, not his detective, who didn’t want to move forward on the case.

Insiders are saying a “circle the wagons” mentality is pervasive among city and police officials. Some detectives, allegedly, are still discounting Wade’s version of the events, and even her sincerity, as they make broad hints that she may be playing up and adding yeast to her story just for attention, or to cash in on the state-run Crime Victims’ Compensation Fund.

All the while the community remains up in arms, asking why the police and members of the Sheriff’s Department (who had to visit the home on a regular basis since Sowell was a registered sex offender), when they visited the home, could not smell the stench that has permeated the neighborhood and perplexed residents for a couple of years.

However, little, if any, attention is being paid to drug treatment (or the lack of availability of it) and what role it could have played in terms of preventing the killings by denying the alleged perpetrator such easy targets in the first place. Published reports state that all of the dead women had, at one time or another, interacted with the criminal justice system due to their addictions, but, obviously, none were ever successfully treated.

And the reason for that lack of treatment lies in part on our twisted national priorities, our over reliance on interdiction — the so-called “War on Drugs,” which really has only been a war on people, to solve the problem and keep us safe. It hasn’t in the past, and won’t in the future … because it can’t. And, while bed space at treatment facilities is at a premium (or in many instances, none existent) there certainly has been no shortage of funding to propagate this failed “war.”

Untreated addiction is akin to a woman walking around a disadvantaged neighborhood with a target on her back. Predators of every ilk and stripe know which streets to drive down to find women so strung out on crack cocaine — they can easily recognize that vacant, desperate, and at the same instance hopeful-of-getting-high look in their eyes — they can quiet literally have their way with them … and yes, even kill them.

I pray that none among us are so naïve as to think that the alleged serial killer dispatched all of the addicted women who roam the streets of Cleveland night after night to a better place. There are other women out there who are in dire need of help … just as there are other predators out there who will eventually kill one or more of these women if we fail to adjust our priorities and begin offering accessible drug treatment.

Certainly addicts, as adults, bear some responsibility for their own condition and pernicious situations. It’s extremely difficult, if not impossible, to force drug treatment on the unwilling. Nonetheless, until we have vacant beds waiting for those women and men who become tired of their wastrel lifestyles and are desirous of a change, we haven’t, as a supposedly humane society, done our part to prevent further tragedies.

From Cool Cleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier's From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available again in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author by visiting http://www.frombehindthewall.com.