Impacts of Criminal Justice Reforms on Homelessness and Substance Use Related Outcomes

• In Event: Dying for Care: How Policy Shapes Opioid Mortality and Treatment Access

Abstract

Impacts of Criminal Justice Reforms on Homelessness and Substance Use Related Outcomes
While policymakers around the country are grappling with homelessness, California faces a stark challenge as the state’s homeless population has increased considerably, exacerbated by the opioid crisis. Here, we leverage the exogenous variation in incarceration and enforcement created by two criminal justice reforms (realignment in 2011 and Proposition 47 in 2014) motivated by a 2009 federal court orders to reduce overcrowding in the state’s prisons, an order that was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2011, as well as the COVID-19 pandemic, to examine whether criminal justice responses to these interventions have contributed to California’s growing homeless population and the often-intertwined issues of substance use and treatment. Using several empirical approaches – state and county level synthetic control, synthetic difference-in-difference, and county level exogenous variation in local level incarceration. Overall, our preliminary findings makes it difficult to conclude that California’s criminal justice reforms – especially Prop 47 - did not have unintended negative consequences. Our estimates suggest an increase in homelessness, driven by an increase in the unsheltered homeless population of 10%-20%. We also find evidence of an increase in substance use, measured as overdose hospitalizations and ER visit, and possibly even in OD deaths. Our estimates also point towards a decrease in substance use disorder treatment admissions driven by a decline in criminal justice treatment referrals. However, we also find some evidence that counties with greater Prop 47 decreases in the prison population saw relatively higher admission rates to drug treatment, which may be a result of local level grants funded by the state savings from the prison population reduction.

Keywords:Policy analysis; Criminal justice; Drug use

DEI: The paper examines possible impacts from significant criminal justice reforms in California on outcomes at the center of policy discussions aimed at assisting vulnerable populations, of which many individuals are of color. Using exogenous variation, the paper provides valuable lessons for policymakers around the country, grappling with the overlapping issues of substance use, homelessness and the criminal justice system.

Author

• Magnus J Lofstrom, Public Policy Institute of California
  Presenting Author