High-tech policing and a renewed focus on community-officer partnerships are helping to bring calm to Camden, N.J., but it hasn’t been a cure-all. The impoverished town of 77,000 is still the most violent and crime-plagued city in the Garden State. A local police took Yahoo News photographer Gordon Donovan to Camden’s most blighted areas — where illegal drugs are dealt and criminals use the wasteland to try and evade capture.
A postal worker walks their route past abandoned homes that were used by drug dealers in Camden N.J. (Gordon Donovan) The Line Cafe has been closed for over a decade and has been used as a shooting gallery by addicts. (Gordon Donovan) A boarded up vacant that fell victim to a fire that awaits demolition in Camden N.J. (Gordon Donovan)
A stray cat crosses the street on one of the narrow streets in North Camden N.J. (Gordon Donovan) An office in old garage has been used as a shooting gallery on South 3rd St. in Camden N.J. (Gordon Donovan) Empty residences at the intersection of Mount Vernon St. and South 3rd St. in Camden N.J. (Gordon Donovan)
A view looking down one of the narrow streets in North Camden N.J. (Gordon Donovan) The interior of vacant homes on Mount Vernon St. in Camden N.J. that are drug hot spots for dealers. Many dealers used burnt vacants as an escape route to avoid arrest by authorities. (Gordon Donovan) The exterior of an old industrial building on South 7th St. in Camden N.J. (Gordon Donovan)
A boarded up furniture store in Camden N.J. (Gordon Donovan) An abandoned home used by drug dealers in Camden N.J. Dealers took cash and past out drugs through hole in door. (Gordon Donovan) Two residents of Camden walk past a row homes, several of which are boarded up from neglect. (Gordon Donovan)

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