Diffusion and Displacement in the Drug and Opioid Epidemic: The Role of Criminal Justice Deterrence

• In Event: Crime prevention and criminal justice

Abstract

Recently, academics and policy makers have questioned the role of criminal justice deterrence as an effective strategy to combat opioid overdoses. While the enforcement of drug policy via arrests takes opioid users and sellers off the streets, it is unclear the extent to which it deters the misuse of opioids within a community. This study investigates the role of criminal justice deterrence practices, i.e., opioid arrests, in effectively deterring opioid overdoses in the United States. While arrests may deter opioid misuse in the focal community, it may also simply displace opioid misuse, forcing users to accommodate by going to other communities. Thus, this study also investigates whether arrests in neighboring communities leads to the diffusion or deterrence of opioid overdoses in a focal community. Combining emergency medical system data, arrest reports, and U.S. Census commuting statistics and sociodemographic data on Chicago’s 77 community areas, we use random effects spatial autoregressive models to predict a community’s EMS-response opioid overdose rate and age-adjusted opioid-related overdose death rate per 100,000 between 2013/14 and 2019. We find evidence consistent with a spatial network spillover of deterrence for opioid EMS-response opioid overdoses, but not overdose deaths. These results have important implications for understanding the effectiveness of criminal justice policies in deterring opioid misuse.

Authors

• Megan Evans, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

• Corina Graif, Pennsylvania State University

• Anna Newell, The Pennsylvania State University