Drug Enforcement and Crime: Recent Evidence from New York State

Objective. The objective of this article is to provide evidence about the effectiveness of drug law enforcement as a tool for reducing other types of crime. Considerable resources are devoted to enforcing our nation's drug laws, but existing research suggests that intensifying drug law enforcement may serve to increase, rather than decrease, crime. Method. Using data for 62 counties in New York State for 1996–2000, we estimate a set of models that evaluate the effects of recent drug arrests on reported rates of assault, robbery, burglary, and larceny. The estimated statistical model includes controls for fixed effects, time effects, autocorrelation, and heteroskedasticity. Results. The consistency of results is striking—there is no model in which drug arrests are found to have a significant negative relationship with crime. All crimes are positively related to arrests for the manufacture and sale of “hard drugs.” Increases in total per capita drug arrests and arrests for “hard drug” possession are accompanied by higher rates for all crimes except assault. Increased arrests for the manufacture or sale of marijuana are associated with increases in larcenies. Conclusions. The empirical findings raise serious questions about the effectiveness of drug enforcement as a crime‐control measure and suggest that significant social costs may arise from existing approaches to drug control.