Controlling Drug and Disorder Problems: A Focus on Oakland's Beat Health Program

摘要

Police departments across the United States have implemented many different strategies to reduce drug and disorder problems. One strategy that is rapidly gaining prominence is the civil remedy approach. Civil remedies are procedures and sanctions, specified by civil statutes and regulations, used to prevent or reduce criminal problems and incivilities. Civil remedies typically aim to persuade or coerce non-offending third parties to take responsibility and action to prevent or end criminal or nuisance behavior. Oakland Police Department's Beat Health Program is an example of a civil remedy program. The Beat Health Program seeks to control drug and disorder problems and restore order by focusing on the physical decay and management conditions of targeted commercial establishments, private homes, and rental properties. Police work with teams of city agency representatives to inspect drug nuisance properties, coerce landowners to clean up blighted properties, post 'no trespassing' signs, enforce health and safety codes and municipal regulatory rules, and initiate court proceedings against property owners who fail to comply with civil law citations. While the ultimate targets of the Beat Health program are offending individuals living or socializing in target 'zones,' the direct targets of the program are typically non-offending third parties (landlords, business owners, and private property owners) responsible for the target property. This Research in Brief reports the results of a randomized field experiment that assesses the relative impacts of the Beat Health program (experimental group) compared to the activities of the regular patrol division (control group) on a population of street blocks in Oakland, California. One hundred street blocks were randomly allocated to the experimental and control groups. During our evaluation period, the Beat Health Unit and the patrol division each targeted 50 places with drug and disorder problems.