Simon Interview

Your monthly Wire fix comes in the form of a Slate interview with creator and co-writer David Simon. It's one of the more comprehensive interviews that I've seen with Simon and covers everything from the Drug War to Baltimore politics and more. It's a little long, and not just because Slate decides to use about 1/10th of a page for the actual text of an article. Seriously, how much shit can they cram around the content? Some excerpts below.

On the possibility of new ideas winning out over Drug War and the current catch and release program in Baltimore that has been successful in arresting 1 out of 6 residents in the city.

Simon: No, I don't. Not within the current political structure. I haven't met any politicians with that kind of courage. I wasn't fond of his performance as mayor, but Kurt Schmoke's merest suggestion that we discuss drug decriminalization was very brave. The idea that we would address this issue as a matter of effective social policy! He was pilloried. It destroyed what remained of his political career. He was a prophet without honor in his own city. People, especially people from outside the city, want to say that Schmoke was soft on drugs.
[snip]
Martin O'Malley has arrested so many Baltimoreans that the ACLU and other civil rights leaders have rightly, to my mind, questioned the constitutionality of the city police department's arrest policy. When we finish filming at 1 in the morning, it's even odds that one of the African-African members of the cast and crew will be detained. My first assistant director was arrested, dumped unceremoniously at central booking, and ultimately released after seeing a court commissioner. The charge against him was never brought into court. This is common in Baltimore under the current administration. Other members of my crew have suffered similar indignities. And it hasn't reduced crime significantly. That's not how you reduce crime.

More, on the popularity and credibility of the show.

I don't know how popular The Wire is on the Upper West Side of New York or Westwood or Des Moines. But I know that in West Baltimore, Omar can't get to the set, because we have people going nuts. Or Stringer Bell or Prop Joe. The show has an allegiance in that community. That's its own answer not that it's popular, but that it's credible. I was just on 92Q, the hip-hop station. The call came in with someone who said, why did you kill Stringer Bell when the real Stringer Bell is still alive? And I said, oh, you mean Mr. Reed? I explained that Reed was not the real Stringer, but that we mix and match stories. But there we were, talking intimately about the history of West Baltimore drug trade as if we were talking about baseball. If it was as lamely white and unnuanced as some people claim, we'd have been found out a long time ago.

Full interview here.