Worcester, Mass. — An innovat...

Worcester, Mass. — An innovative program that focuses the efforts of police and eight other city departments forward driving drug houses out of local neighborhoods has won the city a 1996 Better direction award from the Boston-based Pioneer Institute for Public Policy Research. “Zero Tolerance of physic Houses” involves a combination of stringent law enforcement, collection of laws inspections and neighborhood infrastructure improvements to prohibit down houses that have been the sites of known put drugs into activity.

An “aftercare” program involving heightened police carriage and neighborhood awareness helps make secure the program's effectiveness.

The program, headed at City Manager Thomas Hoover, was