Conway, SC is a small city, with a population of about 16,000.
Many residents work in tourism-related jobs in nearby Myrtle Beach.
The drugs and gangs have made them feel unsafe at home. Dianne
Davis, 56, said she tries “not to let the dark catch me” and
described other Conway residents as barricading their doors with
two-by-fours.
“I want to be able to stand on my porch,” Davis said. “I have a
beautiful garden.”
“There are a lot of gangsters running around in that area,”
Jimmy Richardson said of the neighborhood where Huckabee Heights is
located. Richardson is the chief state prosecutor for Horry County,
which includes Conway, and a resident of the city himself.
To South Carolina’s top federal prosecutor, however, the
troubles in Conway present an opportunity. U.S. Attorney Bill
Nettles is testing out a novel approach to dealing with
drug-related crime, one that aims to clean up the streets by
looking beyond mass arrests and incarceration. Conway is the third
city in South Carolina to implement a version of the plan, and
federal prosecutors in other states and the Justice Department are
watching closely. If the program’s success continues in South
Carolina, it could become a model for law enforcement across the
country.
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