The Indiana Multi-Agency Group Enforcement Drug Task Force made us thankful for acronyms — so we could write its name as IMAGE — but also for so much more.
Over the past 24 years, local police officers working undercover for IMAGE, with no public recognition and at considerable danger to their safety, battled to catch the people selling illegal drugs in our northeast Indiana communities.
They made significant dents in a mammoth problem, and the need for their services never went away.
In the first half of this year alone, we reported on several cases in which local drug dealers caught by IMAGE received lengthy prison sentences.
But now, IMAGE itself has gone away, due to a variety of factors that make other strategies seem more promising for battling the scourge of drugs.
Local law enforcement officers cite Indiana’s new criminal sentencing laws as a major factor in the demise of IMAGE.
The work of IMAGE depended on drug offenders who were willing to serve as informants in order to avoid long prison terms.
Without the threat of harsh sentences, police say, drug offenders would rather serve a light sentence than become informants.
That comes as an unintended consequence of Indiana’s move toward treating drug-possession crimes with more emphasis on rehabilitation and less on punishment.
It doesn’t mean the state’s change in strategy is wrong.
Our communities are home to hundreds, maybe thousands, of people who have made mistakes by using illegal drugs. The potential gains from bringing them back into the mainstream of society are worth a try at treating them differently than in the past.
A focus purely on punishment could leave us with far too many people who are unemployable and who only drain our economy, instead of contributing.
While some people respond positively to a jail or prison term by resolving never to commit crimes again, just as many or more turn the opposite way and become more deeply entrenched in the wrong paths.
Indiana has embarked on an experiment to see if probation and community corrections programs can achieve a better rate of success at helping drug-possession offenders become productive citizens.
This comes as yet another new drug threat is lurking at the doorstep of northeast Indiana. Heroin has gripped southern and central Indiana and is spreading northward. Last week, the heroin epidemic reached Allen County just to our south, and the state approved Allen County for a needle-exchange program aimed at preventing the spread of deadly diseases among heroin users.
Despite their dedicated efforts, police have a hard time keeping up with the ever-changing drug crisis. They bring one type of drug under control, only to have another drug come to the forefront. In recent years, they have battled methamphetamine, spice, prescription medications and now, soon, heroin — each a worse nightmare than the one before.
None of these drugs would be problems without the underlying reality that too many of our neighbors are eager to buy and use them.
IMAGE and the new law-enforcement strategies that replace it have made and will continue to make valiant efforts to cut off the supply of drugs. But it will be a never-ending battle until we reduce the demand for mind-altering poison. Indiana should make a fully committed effort at reaching early-stage drug users and helping them change their lives.