Mayor Parker’s plan to ‘remove the presence of drug users’ from Kensington raises new questions

Mayor Cherelle L. Parker says her goal to end the billion-dollar open-air drug market that has plagued Philadelphia’s Kensington neighborhood for years can be achieved only through getting people in addiction into long-term treatment and housing.

But her strategy hinges on police conducting a sweep of the neighborhood and arresting people for such low-level crimes as drug possession and prostitution — offenses the city hasn’t targeted in years.

Parker’s administration described those actions Thursday in its much-anticipated public safety plan that outlines a multi-step process for Kensington to “remove the presence of drug users” from the neighborhood and end its reputation as a drug destination.

The plan, however, raised new questions about the city’s already strained criminal justice and drug treatment systems, including where people would be placed if they wanted to seek treatment, how a sweep would impact a population with complex health needs, and what it would mean for the jails, where the city has intentionally tried to reduce the population over the last decade.

Parker is sure to face resistance. Health providers who work with people in addiction have expressed concern. And District Attorney Larry Krasner, a progressive prosecutor, declined to comment Friday but said in an interview last month that if police made more arrests for drug possession, he would charge those cases — but doesn’t think it’s the answer to the neighborhood’s ills.

”Am I enthusiastic about giving people convictions for possession of drugs who are willing to make contact with and engage in some level of treatment? No, I’m not,” he said. “It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me that we rack up a ton of possession convictions for people who are suffering from addiction, and that’s somehow supposed to help them with everything that’s necessary to recovery.”

The Police Department’s plan says one unit will investigate drug rings and suppliers in the area, but the crux of it was focused on the dealers and buyers most visible in the neighborhood, which has long been beset by sprawling homelessness, poverty, addiction, and violence.

Under the plan, police will first warn people living on the streets or openly using drugs that they are ramping up enforcement. Officers will later begin making arrests.

» READ MORE: New public safety plan details how police will address gun violence, retail theft, and Kensington’s crises

Police Commissioner Kevin J. Bethel on Thursday declined to set a timeline on how long the warning phase would last, but said residents will “start to see an immediate difference.”

“It will not get resolved in the first 30 days. I want to manage expectations. This has been a systemic, ongoing problem for several years,” he said.

Ben Cocchiaro, a family physician who lives in Kensington and works with people in addiction, said his patients are “deeply uneasy and scared.”

“The one thing many of these folks have left is their agency and autonomy, and now we’re going to take that away,” he said. “For what, so we can warehouse them in a jail that’s already overcrowded? The mayor needs to get serious about this, and this is not a serious response.”

Parker says her administration’s plan is three-pronged — prevention, intervention, and enforcement — and that officials are expanding the city’s public-health ecosystem to serve people in addiction.

But she acknowledged her approach isn’t universally popular and that she’s driven primarily by the needs of long-term residents crying out for change.

“I spent a significant amount of time talking with residents and stakeholders in the Kensington community,” Parker said in an interview Wednesday. “And it is after doing that active listening that I knew it was important to try to put together this comprehensive plan to address the challenges there.”

The city has dozens of programs designed for drug users and more than 1,800 beds in residential rehabs, but city officials acknowledge that the capacity isn’t enough to get hundreds of people in addiction in Kensington into long-term care.

Managing Director Adam K. Thiel said Thursday he’s met with leaders of health systems and providers to expand treatment options, saying “this continuum of care literally doesn’t exist.” Asked how the administration would ensure there’s enough space by the time police conduct a sweep of the neighborhood, he said: “We work really hard.”

» READ MORE: Long wait times and a toxic drug supply make it difficult for Philadelphia patients to get addiction treatment

Health providers who work with people in addiction said they’re concerned about the lack of specificity in the city’s plan — and about the current state of treatment in the city.

“I just don’t know even under the best circumstances how we would ramp up treatment quickly enough to have spots available, and treatment that is high enough quality that it’s going to give people what they need,” said Shoshana Aronowitz, a nurse practitioner who treats people with substance use disorder and is an assistant professor of family and community health at Penn Nursing.

And the city’s toxic, unpredictable drug supply makes it harder to serve patients.

Fentanyl, the powerful synthetic opioid that has replaced most of the city’s heroin supply, causes intense withdrawal symptoms that come on quickly. Xylazine, an animal tranquilizer often added to fentanyl, causes serious wounds that open easily and are slow to heal.

Many addiction treatment centers don’t accept people with wounds because they don’t have the medical capacity to treat them. And getting seen at intake centers, the required first step for many treatment options, can take hours or days, sending people in withdrawal back to the streets for relief.

”It is dangerous and frankly naïve to think we can just incarcerate people who have active addiction to fentanyl and exposure to xylazine without the right systems in place to take care of their health,” said Ashish Thakrar, an addiction medicine physician at Penn Medicine.

» READ MORE: Philadelphia could establish a triage center for people in addiction within weeks, official says

Bethel said the department will enforce laws “in a humane and dignified way” and that the city is weighing the challenges of the community and the increasingly toxic drug supply — including people with open wounds and withdrawal symptoms.

Krasner, a progressive in his second term, changed the city’s strategy on some low-level crimes, and in 2018 directed prosecutors not to charge possession of marijuana cases or sex workers who have two or fewer arrests.

Drug arrests in the city have dramatically declined. Last year, 905 people were arrested for possession, compared with more than 6,000 four years ago — an 85% drop.

Even those who are charged are unlikely to be convicted or face lengthy jail time. About 18% of people charged with drug possession last year were convicted, data show — a rate that is on the rise since the coronavirus disrupted the courts, but still far below previous administrations.

Krasner said his office will withdraw charges when a defendant enters drug treatment. And he said that even when someone is convicted, most judges will sentence them only to probation or a few months in jail.

The number of people arrested for sex work has also plummeted since 2014, when more than 1,000 people were arrested for prostitution. Last year, 142 people were, according to data from the District Attorney’s Office. Only two were charged.

Also last year, 67 people were arrested for “patronizing prostitutes,” and just four were arrested for promoting the work, or running a sex work business. All were charged.

People who are arrested and refuse treatment or diversion services could be charged and incarcerated under Parker’s new plan. It’s not yet clear what impact that could have on the city’s jails, which have seen years of chaos amid severe understaffing and are under a federal monitoring agreement.

Philadelphia has been working since 2015 to reduce its jail population by eliminating unnecessary incarceration and providing people charged with nonviolent crimes an opportunity to be released early.

Leaders of the city’s jail system meet monthly with court officials to analyze the population, according to Deputy Prisons Commissioner Xavier Beaufort, who testified before City Council on Tuesday about the department’s budget.

But when Councilmember Nina Ahmad asked if the jails have a plan to handle an influx of prisoners from Kensington, Beaufort was vague.

“If there is an increase in arrests and detainment, we don’t have the luxury of not taking anybody,” he said. “We have to manage that.”

The majority of people arrested for sex work and drug possession are diverted before they reach the courts through the city’s Police Assisted Diversion program, or PAD.

Started as a pilot program in 2017, PAD is now a citywide strategy to offer resources and services to people arrested for drug possession, prostitution, and retail theft. People arrested are not required to enter treatment and can go through PAD twice, and people with outstanding warrants aren’t eligible. Most diversions are in the 24th Police District, which encompasses Kensington.

Since January 2023, about 2,150 people have been diverted — two-thirds for drug possession. A third were for retail theft, while about 6% for prostitution, according to city data.

It’s unclear how Parker’s new approach might impact PAD, which sends people arrested for prostitution who met certain conditions to a Salvation Army program.

Heather LaRocca, who runs the New Day to Stop Trafficking program, said people engaging in sex work are — like many committing other low-level offenses in Kensington — driven by addiction.

And, she said, there’s not always a clear line between voluntary sex work and trafficking, which is prevalent in Kensington “because if you think about the easiest way to control somebody, it would be to control their access to a substance they have an addiction to.”

Rory Kramer, an associate professor of sociology and criminology at Villanova University who has studied urban policing, said offering diversion instead of arrest in cases of people living in addiction is akin to “forced treatment,” which he said many people don’t respond well to.

“It is a veneer of kindness,” he said. “Even if you say you’re arresting someone to put them in treatment, what person who gets arrested is like, ‘I’m now going to trust you to treat me.’ It’s a fantasy.”

Inquirer staff writer Max Marin contributed to this article.