REVOLVING DOPE DOOR

Cop: Heroin dealers arrested, released with alarming regularity

As the heroin epidemic continues its deadly march through Mercer County and beyond, one local police officer told me law enforcement is “spinning its wheels” in the battle to get the drug off the streets. Why?

Bail reform.

“If you arrest someone for dealing heroin, unless their risk assessment comes back a three or above, they’re walking,” this anonymous cop told me. “Are people going to jail for three, four, five months for first or second drug offense? They’re not. If they have a gun, or if it’s their fifth time or something, or they have a kilo, then it’s different. But your run of the mill drug dealer? We arrest them, lock them up, they get their risk assessment, and nine times out of 10 they’re walking out the next morning.”

Brilliant. Just brilliant.

Clearly, the state legislature needs to act, and needs to act immediately. Heroin dealers should exist outside the new bail reform laws. You shouldn’t be able to deal death Thursday night and be out of jail in time for “The Price is Right” come Friday.

Understand: The bail reform measures — which had some strange bedfellows, like Gov.

Chris Christie and the ACLU — are, in many cases, good laws. They were created, in part, to allow people who have no access to money a chance to get out of jail while awaiting a hearing. For low level stuff, this was a no-brainer. No reason for a non-violent offender to have to sit in county lockup for a month before they get in front of a judge.

So under the new rules, someone gets arrested, goes to jail, gets a near-immediate (within 48 hours) hearing with a judge, an algorithm spits out the “risk assessment,” and if the assessment is a 1 or 2 and the judge agrees, the offender is released.

And this Mercer County cop says the majority of heroin dealers are routinely walking out to continue to ply their trade.

“For many dealers, all they know is this life,” the officer said. “So if you sell heroin, get arrested, and you’re out the next day, well, what’s the point of not selling heroin? The people who are dealing heroin need to have stricter consequences the first time they’re arrested to make it a turn off. They know, on paper, they might go to prison for selling, but on the flip side, very few are.”

This officer isn’t advocating tossing the keys away either after the arrest; one thought he has would be to see those arrested for dealing heroin get placed in some type of work training program, otherwise …

“What do we expect them to do once they’re back out on the streets?” he said. “Of course they’re going to go back to dealing.”

So with the revolving door of dealers coming in and out of county jail, the flow of heroin has obviously not been abated. In fact, this officer — who is on the front lines of the heroin wars — said, at least anecdotally, heroin use and abuse continue to rise.

“There’s more overdoses,” the officer said. “We’re definitely seeing more. People are calling us for a variety of reasons. There’s immunity now, so if you or someone else calls for help they’re immune from being charged. Users know we have Narcan, so that’s another reason. But the drug has become even more prevalent since bail reform.”

The officer admitted he has no hard statistical evidence to prove bail reform is the reason for the rise in heroin use and abuse, but if it walks like a duck, etc.

This should not really be a debate. Heroin dealers should not be allowed to walk the streets hours after being arrested. It puts the police at a massive disadvantage in attempting to stem the tide, and it puts users one step closer to the grave.