Blought #41: The Wire Pt. 2
Last week my three part series focused on families effected by drugs and the school system that fails so many inner-city youth in America. Today we’ll look at criminal organizations and the struggles of policing a major city.
Organized Crime as a Way to Survive
More than just keeping us entertained on Sunday nights David Simon drew upon his past as a crime reporter in Baltimore to tell us the ugly truths that so many are shielded from on a daily basis. The idea of familial crime organizations is most often associated with the Italian crime families of the earlier half of the 20th century. Originating in parts of southern Italy and Sicily in the late 19th century, the mafia was originally formed as a means of protection for citizens and businesses.
Black organized crime had a similar path. As the Civil Rights movement began to die down in the late 60’s The Black Panther Party took the reigns as the leaders of the movement for African-American social justice and liberation. By the late 70’s most of the BPP were either imprisoned, dead or declared enemies of the state.
With a large concentration on the West coast many former BPP members began to form their own protection groups for black youth giving birth to gangs like the Crips and Bloods of LA and the Gangster Disciples of Chicago. Instead of joining the boy scouts, who regularly discriminated against blacks kids, young boys would join a gang for a sense of belonging, fraternal hood.
Today gangs don’t hold as much credibility in most of Urban America. Today much of street life is about the “hustle”. In The Wire a person was either west side or east side. If it came to the money even that didn’t matter in certain situations. Along with Prop Joe and others, The Wire’s Baltimore had a co-op. The rules were everybody eats off of the same plate and keep your organization in check to curb violence and police activity, that’s it. When the show first started Avon Barksdale was the kingpin of Baltimore’s drug trade on the west side. He and his right hand man Stringer Bell ran their organization making millions of dollars.
As mentioned before in Pt. 1, Avon’s nephew Deangelo ran one of the organization’s most lucrative pieces of drug real estate. Just like the mob Avon and Stringer ran their operation like an organization. Stringer Bell even took business classes at the local community college to learn more about supply chain management. Throughout Season one Avon, Stringer and their organization enjoyed the fruits of their labor while a special task force kept tabs on their phones using a wire tap hence the title of the show.
When Season 2 began, Avon and Deangelo were both doing bids in sate prison. With Avon in jail, the Barksdale organization was having a tough time finding a new plug. Stringer decided to buy a more stepped on (lower quality) product. Since the new product wasn’t selling well Stringer decided to change the packaging (yellow top viles to purple top viles) of his product. That way he could make his consumers (drug addicts) think that they were receiving a newer and better product. That shit’s like business 101. When Avon gets out of prison he sees Stringer is trying to legitimize their organization’s money. Stringer buys up lake front property, making him a developer at the beginning of America’s gentrification of the 21st century. Stringer opened up a print shop and was even beginning to make political contributions to State Senator Clay Davis. That’s like mobster 101. Clean the money up to make it harder to trace.
Everything comes to a head in Season 3 when Marlo Stanfield, an up and coming drug kingpin in his own right sparks a turf war with Avon. This isn’t a turf war in the sense of my color, my flag, my hood. It was more “You make a lot of money here and I want some of that”. Competitors competing for customers much like Blockbuster and Netflix. When one boss goes down there is always another waiting behind him.
This is where systemic issues arise. In part 1 I gave a brief summary of how a child born in a destitute situation has to make choices. When your environment offers you a set of choices, you have to decide between your options. Just like the Italian Immigrants who became mobsters did nearly a century ago, the descendants of salves and later on share croppers have had to make decisions based on survival. The effects of crime on most inner-city communities today have left a lasting impact on communities that no amount of law enforcement or policy can change. To do away with drugs is a battle that can’t be won.
A criminal organization’s head can either wholesale their product or monopolize a market, most commonly a neighborhood. If you wholesale then you sell larger quantities to distributors. If you monopolize then you are the distributor and you have street pushers selling for you.
The street pushers operate out of trap or stash houses. Traps and stash houses are usually the targets of law enforcement as well as stick up artists. Stick up artists raid traps and stash houses for drugs, money and guns. They then redistribute the drugs on the street. One of the most popular character sin the series was Omar Little. Omar was a headache for Avon and Stringer throughout the first season by constantly attacking and robbing their stash houses. He went away for much of Season 2 after he aided investigators with bringing down Avon. By Season 3 he was back and up to his old tricks until he was gunned down in Season 5.
Police Gotta get Paid to Police…
At the forefront of this battle most often is local law enforcement. The police on The Wire always had a hard time nabbing their person of interest. This how the entire series began. A janitor for a project took the stand against a Barksdale employee facing a murder charge. Somehow the employee got off and the witness wound up dead. For some reason police still don’t understand, police cooperation even in the best of scenarios can get you killed.
In season one Lt. Cedric Daniels of the Baltimore Police Department was tasked with starting a special crimes unit, mainly for bringing down the Barksdales. The brass wanted to lower the city’s nation leading homicide rate while Daniels and his task force wanted to follow the drugs. Too often did we see the higher ups worry about numbers (homicides and other crimes) than actual police work. Ervin Burrell and William Rawls are the two of the most high ranking official in the BPD. Both men had motives that drove them to make decisions that would improve their careers and do little for the city as a whole. The most crippling blow to the BPD was budgeting.
Daniel’s wire tap required an operating budget of its own which included both equipment and man hours. For the first three seasons the wire tap had plenty of hits and misses with their biggest scores coming from their second bust of Avon Barksdale at the end of season three effectively ending the Barksdale organization.
By seasons four and five David Simon showed us just how important a budget is for staffing police. In one particular scene in season five, Sgt. Carver, who worked his way up through the first four seasons from a member of Daniels’ task force, is addressing his officers before their shifts. He informs the men that they have to work more overtime hours without receiving overtime pay much to the group’s dismay. There was even a fight that broke out between two cops after frustrations began to run high.
Just like the school systems in urban America, police departments forces are equally as important as well as strapped for cash. My hometown of Cleveland had to deal with the same issues around the time The Wire premiered. A number of major city police departments around the country have complained about how understaffed they are. In addition to the 32 officers killed this year in the line of duty many PD’s are also bracing for mass retirements.
Recruitment numbers are also low adding to the fact that the economic downturn of the 2008 forced many cities to layoff police officers along with other emergency workers. Some PD’s like Albuquerque are preparing for an understaffed police force by 2025. The Phoenix police department was reported to have had a hiring freeze that lasted from 2009 to March of 2015.
When a PD is understaffed, under funded or both, those who suffer the most is the public. On The Wire, the wire tap had to end once Avon was taken down. When Marlo presented himself as the new kingpin officers had to scramble to set the wire tap back up.
When you have a crime riddled city some of the most important people to keep paid and happy are your PD. Just like a school district when your PD is understaffed and under funded a city will see poor performance. An officer who just worked 15 hours of overtime only to be paid regularly may act irrational in certain situations. We saw this play out when Officer Collicchio assaulted a corner boy who was being detained. When a department has to cut staff or certain services, the problems that the inner city faces will only increase.
Next week I will conclude my series about The Wire and inner-city Strife by examining the Politics and the media and how the role they play in urban America.