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Improving the Measurement of Drug-Related Crime

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Improving the Measurement of Drug-Related Crime Improving the Measurement of Drug-Related Crime 2013 Improving the Measurement of Drug-Related Crime Office of National Drug Control Policy Executive Office of the President Washington, DC October 2013 Acknowledgements This publication was sponsored by the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), Executive Office of the President, under contract number HHSP23320095649WC_ HHSP23337017T to the RAND Corporation. The authors of this report are Rosalie Liccardo Pacula, Russell Lundberg, Jonathan P. Caulkins, Beau Kilmer, Sarah Greathouse, Terry Fain, and Paul Steinberg from the RAND Drug Policy Research Center. M. Fe Caces served as the ONDCP Task Order Officer. This work was significantly improved by input from an expert panel, which consisted of Allen Beck, Al Blumstein, Henry Brownstein, Rick Harwood, Paul Heaton, Mark Kleiman, Ted Miller, Nancy Rodriquez, Gam Rose, William Sabol, and Eric Sevigny; we also had input from ONDCP staff, including Fe Caces, Michael Cala, and Terry Zobeck. Disclaimer The information and opinions expressed herein are the views of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Office of National Drug Control Policy or any other agency of the Federal Government. Notice This report may be reproduced in whole or in part without permission from ONDCP. Citation of the source is appreciated. The suggested citation is: Office of National Drug Control Policy (2013). Improving the Measurement of Drug- Related Crime. Washington, DC: Executive Office of the President. Electronic Access to Publication This document can be accessed electronically through the following World Wide Web address: http://www.whitehouse.gov/ondcp Originating Office Executive Office of the President Office of National Drug Control Policy Washington, DC 20503 October 2013 ii Executive Summary S.1. Introduction Policymakers need good information on the impact of drug use and drug markets on crime, since crime is a major source of the external burden caused by the demand for illegal substances. Thus, information on how drug demand causes crime—directly and indirectly—is vital for evaluating strategies that could be used to manage the problem and/or reduce the harm caused by these illegal markets. Such information is also needed to set priorities for how best to target limited resources to tackle the problem. While partaking in any illegal market is, by definition, a crime, not all illegal substances generate the same burden on society in terms of non-drug crime. In recent years, an expanding line of research has attempted to specify causal links between particular drugs and crime so as to better inform policymaking and the general understanding of the problem. Based on this scientific work, efforts in the United States, Europe, Australia, and Canada have tried to attribute some share of the total crime observed in society to the use of drugs and the presence of illegal drug markets. While these attribution studies have advanced the field, they remain unable to generate a credible range of estimates of the overall amount of crime that is causally attributable to drug use and supply. In July 2011, the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) awarded RAND’s Drug Policy Research Center a contract to help move the science forward by developing a methodology that could be used to estimate the total amount of drug-related crimes in the United States and by pilot testing the proposed methodology using a select number of data sources to develop estimates at the national level. We began with a thorough literature review focused on studies identifying causal links between specific drugs and particular types of crimes. Then, in consultation with a group of external experts, we assessed the current strategies used to translate that knowledge into measures of drug relatedness. Several important insights were gleaned from these first two steps, leading our team to conclude that an entirely new approach was needed for describing drug-related crime. Prior attempts to improve the methodology for determining drug- attributable crime were constructive but narrow; they were incrementally improving the measurement of one particular dimension of the drugs-crime relationship while neglecting other equally important dimensions. Thus, we propose in this report an entirely new method for tracking and measuring the magnitude of drug-related crime and provide a prototype of a new strategy for measuring the problem, which we call “The Drugs-Crime Dashboard.” iii S.2. Insights from the Existing Literature The scientific literature’s earliest observation about the drugs-crime relationship is also the most obvious. People involved with drugs in one way or another account for a very large proportion of criminal activity, as reflected, for example, in urinalysis results and survey responses of arrestees. However, not all those crimes should be thought of as “caused” by drugs. Sometimes, both the drug-related activity and the criminal activity can be caused by an independent third factor (such as a proclivity toward deviant behavior more generally). Teasing out what causes what amid reciprocal relationships is extremely hard to do well, but all too easy to do badly. Social scientists, particularly econometricians and statisticians, have made enormous strides over the last 10–20 years, both in developing statistical methods that can identify causal relationships and showing how flawed the conclusions drawn from older, less sophisticated analyses can be. Hence, although there have been any number of well written, comprehensive reviews of the drugs-crime literature in the past, we began our analysis with a review of the most recent (published in 2000 or later) and methodologically rigorous contributions to the literature. Upon reviewing these methodologically strong studies on a drug-by-drug basis, four main insights about specific drugs-crime connections emerged: There is strong evidence that cocaine (including crack) was, at least in the 1980s, associated with homicide and systemic (i.e., market-related) violent crime. Heroin use (but not heroin markets) appears to be most strongly causally related to property crimes. While methamphetamines are commonly associated with aggressive behaviors and criminality, the evidence of a causal relationship in aggregate data is limited and inconclusive. Even though marijuana is commonly used by individuals arrested for crimes, there is little support for a contemporaneous, causal relationship between its use and either violent or property crime. There is evidence supporting a possible intertemporal relationship, but it is not clear to what extent this is unique to marijuana. When viewed together, these insights point to our first, fairly predictable conclusion: Not all illicit drugs cause the same amount or types of crime, if any at all. Differences in the drug of choice and the environment in which the drug is taken (e.g., with alcohol or without) will be important for determining whether involvement with illegal drugs will translate into non-drug criminal activity. Other important conclusions also emerged from our literature review. In particular, it became evident that drug use influences crime not just through proximal (or contemporaneous) mechanisms. Early and/or persistent drug involvement can also have long-lasting impacts on an individual’s need or willingness to engage in crime. Similarly, for a community, the current presence of drug users and even drug markets can have long-term impacts by driving certain businesses or investment away from the community, thereby fostering an environment that iv perpetuates low economic opportunity (and hence high rewards for crime). These temporally lagged and indirect mechanisms through which drugs can influence future crime rates are entirely missed in the current formulation of drug-attribution fractions (DAFs), but must be considered when thinking of ways to capture the overall influence of drugs on crime. A third conclusion is that the science tends to focus on just a few types of drugs (cocaine, heroin, and marijuana) and only certain types of markets (mostly retail ones). These are areas where the crime/arrest/use data are relatively better, variations observed across jurisdictions can be exploited, and sources for statistical identification exist. However, gaping holes remain in our understanding of the linkages to other drugs (e.g., methamphetamines, prescription pharmaceuticals) and other crimes, including those generated at higher levels of the drug market (e.g., importation, wholesale trafficking within the United States). Also lacking are high-quality systematic studies evaluating the role of drugs in white-collar crime and/or government corruption. Oddly, the drugs-crime literature has also generally given little acknowledgement to the role substance abuse plays in child abuse and domestic violence. These gaps are an impediment to researchers and to the policy discourse because they limit attention to a fairly narrow slice of the problem. It is impossible to fully appreciate the importance of drugs as a social problem or to assess the potential value or effectiveness of specific policy responses without a full understanding of the additional aspects of the problem. However, for scientific evaluation of these issues to reach the same level it has for retail markets, additional data sources and better metrics of these types of crimes need to be developed. S.3. Drug-Attribution Fractions Are an Inadequate Construct for Capturing All Drug-Involved
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