Reducing Crime and Drug Dealing by Improving Place Management: A Randomized Experiment, Final Report

• NCJ Number: 173727
• Date Published: 1997
• Author(s): J E Eck; J Wartell
• Length: 133 pages
• Grant Number(s): 90-IJ-CX-K006
• Agencies: NIJ-Sponsored
• Publication Type: Research (Applied/Empirical)

Annotation

This report evaluates the effectiveness of police follow-up with landlords whose properties have been the target of drug enforcement.

Abstract

Considerable attention has been focused on the effectiveness of police enforcement against retail drug dealers in many cities. However, concentrated enforcement and crackdowns have provided mixed results as to long-term effectiveness. Recent evidence suggests that property owners and managers may have an important role in keeping drug dealing out of rental residential properties. This experiment randomly divided rental properties, following drug raids, into three groups: a group where the landlord only received a letter from the police; a group where the landlord was required to meet with police and codes officials; and a control group with no follow-up. Offenders who were leaseholders were more likely to be evicted from properties in the meeting group than the other two groups. In addition, the meeting group places had a greater decline in crimes and drug events 6 months following treatment than the places in the other groups. The report describes the methodology of the experiment and implications for policy and research. Figures, notes, tables, references, appendixes