Robert Evans at Cracked on how the six most popular zero-tolerance/ad hoc policies and laws to deter crime, incidentally–and quite ironically–cause it to flourish all the more.
The problem is that in order to differentiate a “drugs BAD” area from the surrounding “drugs kinda not OK, we guess” areas, someone needs to set actual borders of the drug-free zone. The particular border distance the authorities picked was 1,000 feet from the premises, which sounds pretty reasonable on paper … until you think about just how many schools and other kid-frequented zones there are in any urban area. Each of those is itself a “don’t sell drugs here” zone, plus a ring of about three city blocks in every direction. At which point you will probably find yourself on the border of another drug-free zone. When you map out all of the intersecting circles, basically every city is one giant, pulsating mass of overlapping drug-free zones.
Read more at Cracked.
