Operation Crackdown provides community groups (such as neighborhood civic organizations and tenants' rights groups) with free legal representation to combat quality-of-life problems that often arise in areas where drug use is prevalent. Operation Crackdown attorneys use the civil courts and city agencies to force the owners of problem properties to stop illegal drug use, drug sales, and drug manufacturing on those properties.

Operation Crackdown has a motto: "Working to make our neighborhoods a better place to live."