Texas' Tulia Lesson: Dems Should Join GOP in Abandoning Failed Drug Task Force Strategy

Several recent bits of news remind us (reflectively, if not nostalgically) of Texas' defunct system of drug task forces, the most famous of which was the one in Tulia, where 39 people were convicted on the uncorroborated testimony of a single, rogue undercover cop, Tom Coleman. Eventually most were pardoned by the Governor and Coleman was convicted of perjury.

Most recently, Coleman's perjury conviction was finally upheld by Texas' criminal courts, Kuff informs us, declaring rightly, "I presume this will be the last we hear from Tom Coleman for awhile, at least until the Tulia movie hits the screens."

The Tulia episode began a multi-year saga whereby the Department of Public Safety tried to take over management of Texas' task forces, but failing to gain compliance with new rules, the task forces proved unmanageable. Finally, in 2006, a re-election year, Governor Rick Perry pulled the plug on this dysfunctional system, shifting money from regional task forces to give grants to border sheriffs in an homage to his conservative base on immigration and "terrorism."

The lesson from Texas was that these task forces were virtually rogue (or certainly unaccountable) by nature. Imagine a nightmare bureaucracy that's federally funded, locally staffed, and managed by the state! The people who manage don't hire and fire; the people who hire don't manage, and the people who fund it all do neither; truly nobody had control of anything, and there was always some bureaucratic excuse why it was nobody's fault.

At their height, Texas had 51 of these odd, pseudo-entites employing around 700 officers with federal grant money. But Tulia wasn't just a Texas problem, these agencies are a source of scandal and a harbor for rogue officers nationwide.

Even those task forces that weren't rogue in Texas were almost exclusively focused on low-level transactions and large-scale sweeps of users. Partially as a result of task force abuses, the Texas Department of Public Safety changed its own rules governing its Narcotics Division to give "no priority" to arresting users and focusing investigations on "Drug Trafficking Organizations" made up of five identifiable conspirators or more. As a result, though DPS drug arrests declined 40%, they got "bigger fish" and captured more than twice as much dope in the first year of the new strategy - this at a time when overall US drug seizures were declining.

When Gov. Perry abolished the last of Texas' drug task forces two years ago, law enforcement interests predicted the sky would fall. But you know what happened? Nothing, or at least nothing bad. Some agencies that participated in abolished task forces found they made more drug arrests than before! (Whether the money's new recipients - Sheriffs participating in "Operation Linebacker," "Wrangler," "Rio Grande," etc. - have used the money in ways that reduced crime is another matter.)

In Washington, in his final budget, President Bush continues his years-long drive to de-fund these task forces at the national level, convincing Congress to slash last year's funding for these grants by 2/3. As in years past, it's the Democrats who are up in arms. Drug War Chronicle has good coverage of the D.C.-side politics of cutting these funds.

As happened when Perry eliminated Texas' regional drug task forces, we see local headlines cropping up around the country like, "Authorities fear rise in drug trade if federal funds are cut," or "Drug war at a crossroads," hyping the drug problem as though failing to dole out these pork barrel grants were the equivalent of failing to provide combat troops with body armor. Just like in Texas, though, those other states will find that locking up scores of low-level drug users without treatment or rehabilitation services wasn't making them safer.

Somehow we must get the message to our brethren states: Not only will the sky not fall if you get rid of regional drug task forces, you'll probably be better off.