Q&A with Warren Boyd, Co-Executive Producer of The Cleaner
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FL: In The Cleaner, police involvement and the war on drugs isn't much of an issue and is hardly mentioned in any of the first season's shows. Is that a conscious decision?
WB: This is what it's like with law enforcement at 18 years of doing this. We develop a lot of relationships, and what the police know is what the purpose is. They know that what I'm trying to do is get somebody off drugs—bottom line. They're aware of that. They themselves have been more help than they've been anything else because it's a problem that's out of control. They don't have the manpower to handle it all. And if they have someone who's not committing a crime, they'll usually let me do my thing and actually give me a little help. And I agree, if there's someone committing a crime, then they have to go to jail first, and we'll talk about what we're going to do after that. If somebody who's simply addicted to and high on drugs and creating all that tumultuous stuff and there happens to be police contact that's taken place, then we work together. We work together to deal with it in a way other than incarceration if we can.
WB: This is what it's like with law enforcement at 18 years of doing this. We develop a lot of relationships, and what the police know is what the purpose is. They know that what I'm trying to do is get somebody off drugs—bottom line. They're aware of that. They themselves have been more help than they've been anything else because it's a problem that's out of control. They don't have the manpower to handle it all. And if they have someone who's not committing a crime, they'll usually let me do my thing and actually give me a little help. And I agree, if there's someone committing a crime, then they have to go to jail first, and we'll talk about what we're going to do after that. If somebody who's simply addicted to and high on drugs and creating all that tumultuous stuff and there happens to be police contact that's taken place, then we work together. We work together to deal with it in a way other than incarceration if we can.
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