Assessing the impact of safety interventions on open drug markets in a small Swedish municipality using synthetic control methods

Abstract

Objectives

We analyze the impact of the “Stoppa droghandeln” (“Stop the drug trade”) program, a set of safety interventions aimed at reducing crime, particularly drug-related crimes, in a small Swedish municipality (Österåker) from 2018 to 2023.

Methods

We use a count-based synthetic control approach to compare police crime data before and after beginning the safety interventions (“Stop the drug trade”). This quasi-experimental design was used to infer the causal effects of “Stop the drug trade” on crime, using an evaluation framework including several robustness tests with different crime types. Cluster detection analysis was also used to monitor potential changes in the geography of open drug markets.

Results

In 2023, Österåker performed better than 82% of all Swedish municipalities for drug-related offenses. Estimates indicate that 3221 crimes were prevented in Österåker, including 589 less drug-related offenses. However, the non-significant p-values suggest that Österåker’s crime reduction did not outperform most other municipalities. While this could be due to other municipalities implementing their own interventions, the magnitude and consistency of the treatment effects across crime types in Österåker make it unlikely that these results occurred by chance. In terms of geography, clusters of drug-related offenses were stable, and after the interventions, they became more concentrated in particular places.

Conclusions

This study’s findings underscore the potential impact of a blend of social and situational crime prevention interventions to reduce drug-related offenses and other crimes in a small municipality. The Österåker case demonstrates that strategies should target specific types of crime and monitor possible shifts in crime concentration across different parts of the study area over time. The synthetic control method helped isolate the impact of safety interventions on drug-related crime, demonstrating its value as a tool for policy evaluation.