By Perez-Vincent, Santiago M.; Puebla, David; Alvarado, Nathalie; Mejía, Luis Fernando; Cadena, Ximena; Higuera, Sebastián; Niño, José David

Crime and violence have plagued Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) for decades. For the region’s inhabitants, living amid violence disrupts everyday life, while also complicating the operations of the State and private companies, and reducing societal well-being in multiple ways. The fear and experience of being a victim of crime can affect people’s physical and mental health, lower productivity, and shape fundamental decisions, such as where to live and how to pursue academic and professional development. For the Inter- American Development Bank (IDB) Group, the leading development institution in LAC, the high levels of crime and violence in the region pose a serious obstacle to achieving its strategic objectives of strengthening sustainable economic growth, reducing poverty and inequality, and addressing climate change. Quantifying the cost of crime is fundamental to understanding the gravity of the situation and aligning the dialogue to find concrete actions to remedy it. However, doing so is not a simple task. Measuring the cost of crime requires estimating what the lives of LAC citizens would be like if they were not exposed to crime and violence, and comparing this alternative scenario with the current situation. The complexity of the phenomenon of crime and violence—which affects and is affected by multiple individual and social factors—makes such a comparison difficult. The lack of accurate, up-to-date, and comparable data on crime and victimization in most countries in the region further complicates the task. Moreover, crime generates costs not only from the occurrence of criminal acts but also from the anticipation and fear of them, underscoring the importance of incorporating perceptions of insecurity in analyses of its costs and in shaping public policies. The response to crime also implies a reorientation of resources. Thus, these analyses should also include a review of the allocation and efficiency of public spending on security. Despite these difficulties, but mindful of them, the IDB has promoted a series of publications to aid in quantifying the cost of crime and violence in LAC. The most recent of these publications (Jaitman et al. , 2017) estimated that the direct costs of crime (in terms of (i) human capital lost due to homicides, reported non-lethal crimes, and deprivation of liberty; (ii) expenditures by private firms to prevent crime; and (iii) public spending to respond to and prevent crime) averaged between 3 and 3.5 percent of GDP in 17 countries in the region in 2014. This publication continues that line of research. Prepared in partnership with Fedesarrollo, the document expands, updates, and refines the estimates of these three direct costs of crime and violence. The updated results—covering 22 countries in the region—show that the costs of crime remain high, at around 3.4 percent of GDP in 2022. This is roughly equivalent to 78 percent of the public budget for education, twice the public budget for social assistance, and 12 times the budget for research and development in these countries. The new estimates also show the evolution of these costs over time. In addition to updating the estimates for these three direct costs, this new publication explores the indirect costs of crime and violence (i.e., dimensions affected by fear or by the experience of being a victim of crime or violence). It summarizes recent advances in the academic literature focused on quantifying the impact of crime and violence on various dimensions of development. The evidence, much of it from our region, reveals that crime and violence directly affect the objectives of the IDB Group’s new Institutional Strategy. They impact business and investment, reducing economic growth. They affect human capital accumulation and the health at birth of the most vulnerable populations, deepening poverty and inequality. And they are linked to the unrestricted exploitation of natural resources and ecosystem degradation, thus contributing to climate change. The study concludes with the analysis of three complementary studies, carried out within the framework of this publication, that seek to show how crime imposes costs on our region, affecting tourism activity, migration, and business productivity. Together, the analyses presented in both parts of the paper complement each other to provide a comprehensive look at the costs that crime and violence impose on LAC societies. However, much remains to be learned. Emerging dynamics, such as cybercrime, and complex ones, such as organized crime, pose challenges with likely profound impacts for the LAC region. These issues are evolving in a worrisome way. Organized criminal groups, which account for 50 percent of homicides in the Americas (UNODC, 2023), are increasing their presence and influence, raising concerns about rising violence across the region. In LAC, 54 percent of households report the presence of local criminal groups (Uribe et al. , 2022), and between 20 and 50 percent consider organized crime to be the greatest threat to their security (LAPOP, 2012, 2014, 2019). Improving the measurement of these phenomena and the quantification of their impacts should be an essential part of efforts to achieve an effective public policy approach. The IDB seeks to promote sound public sector institutions and policies that translate into more effective, efficient, and transparent governments that serve the needs of the people and foster sustainable and inclusive growth. The main objective of this publication is to provide information to support these objectives by raising awareness of the magnitude and variety of the impacts of crime and violence in our region. We also hope that it will promote debate and the development of new studies to deepen this complex but urgent research agenda.

Washington, DC: Inter-American Development Bank (“IDB”) 2024. 170p.

By Paul M Bisca, Vu Chau, Paolo Dudine, Raphael A Espinoza, Jean-Marc Fournier, Pierre Guérin, Niels-Jakob H Hansen, and Jorge Salas

Violent crime and insecurity remain major barriers to prosperity in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). With just 8 percent of the global population, LAC accounts for a third of the world’s homicides. Building on the existing literature, this paper aims to support economic policymakers and development partners by exploring the interplay between insecurity and macroeconomic outcomes, with emphasis on the relationship between violent crime and growth, the business climate, and public finances. The analysis shows that national-level crime indicators mask huge internal disparities, and that municipalities with 10 percent higher homicide rates have lower economic activity by around 4 percent. The paper develops an innovative measure of insecurity—the share of crime-related news—and shows its association with lower industrial production. Using firm-level data, it also estimates that the direct costs of crime, for firms, are around 7 percent of annual sales, and these are much higher when gangs and drug-trafficking organizations are present. Violent crime rises with macroeconomic instability, inequality, and governance problems. Using a large cross-country panel, the analysis finds that homicides increase when a country is affected by negative growth, high inflation, or a worsening of inequality. Victimization surveys indicate that where populations are concerned with the rule of law—impunity and police corruption—only one in five victims file their case with the police. Lack of trust and crime can be mutually reinforcing. Finally, the paper documents the fiscal burden of security provision and finds that spending tends to be inelastic to crime and that spending efficiency could be improved. The paper concludes with policy lessons and areas for additional collaboration between national authorities, international partners, and key stakeholders. These focus on data collection and analysis, economic policies that may address the root causes and manifestations of crime, strengthening rule of law institutions, and intensifying regional exchanges on security and public finance issues.

Washington, DC: : International Monetary Fund. 2024. 60p.

By Gregorio Gimenez, Liubov Tkacheva, Katarína Svitková and Beatriz Barrado

The world’s urban population is booming; by 2050, six and a half billion people will be living in urban areas (World Bank, 2011a). On the one hand cities are significant population, infrastructure and economy hubs, as well as centers of political power; on the other hand, according to a time-proved assumption provided by the social sciences, the growth of cities tends to lead to disruption and crime (Shaw and McKay, 1942). The focus of this study on the city level is in line with the gradual transformation of governance and the growing importance of urban political economies (Sassen, 2006). In a public policy domain, the urban lens is useful for addressing site-specific issues – especially in the field of security (UN-Habitat, 2012; Jaitman and Guerrero, 2015). Crime rates tend to reveal geographic patterns, with higher concentration in urban areas (Eck and Weisburd, 2015; Johnson et al., 2007; Curman, Andersen and Brantingham, 2015; Gill, Wooditch and Weisburd, 2017). Understanding the degree to which urban concentration affects crime incidents is a fundamental issue to better plan crime prevention strategies and reduce violence. Focusing on the urban dimension of violent crime, the main aim of this study is to examine the relationship between the degree of urban concentration and the number of serious offenses, particularly homicides. Most existing research is focused on developed countries1 and often has methodological problems, mostly due to the use of databases with poor data quality. This problem is especially acute in developing countries, where crime statistics are usually fragmented, inconsistent, and aggregated only to the most macro levels. The lack of information and the weak national statistical systems are an important challenge for conducting rigorous research. It is important to emphasize that our contribution is not only in terms of providing additional evidence, but also in terms of the type of context that we analyze. As Ajzenman and Jaitman (2016:9) remark, providing empirical evidence from developing countries is crucial, given that “developing and developed countries are different in many dimensions, and also because crime levels tend to be much higher in the developing world and, in particular, in Latin America”. Specifically in Latin America, one of the main characteristics of the phenomenon of crime and violence is the degree of geographic concentration. Urban homicide rates are much higher than the average homicide rate, and almost half of all homicides are concentrated in 10% of municipalities (IDB, 2017). Violence in cities is not only homicidal and includes all types of crimes. Among the main causes associated with the concentration of crimes in urban areas, Alvarado and Muggah (2018) highlight those linked to the existence of large poor and peripheral neighbourhoods, the presence of disorderly urbanization and youth unemployment. Regarding our case study, Costa Rica, Vilalta Perdomo, Castillo and Torres (2016) highlight a series of specificities in the link between urbanization and delinquency. They point out that the Costa Rican population is largely concentrated around so-called Gran Área Metropolitana (GAM). They remark that, according to the Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Censos (INEC), in 2011 this area occupied 4% of the national territory and concentrated 53% of the population. Most of the country’s crimes take place in this area, which is characterized by higher unemployment, but also higher education and income levels. Higher education is related to higher earnings, which means that there are more potential victims for crimes against property. The authors also indicate that, within the GAM, San Jose is considered the most important zone of the country for the cocaine trade. Consequently, the GAM as a whole, and San Jose in particular, present the greatest challenges for public policies, especially in relation to urban development and public safety. Our in-depth econometric analysis of Costa Rica – a country of the Global South with significant urbanization and inequality rates – uses highly disaggregated socioeconomic data. It focuses on a wide range of types of crimes, in combination with econometric techniques which test for the presence of endogeineity, which constitutes a significant empirical contribution to the existing literature. The article is organized as follows. The next section presents a literature review in the field of urban violence in Latin America and Costa Rica. Its main objective is to provide a general context of citizen insecurity in the region and, particularly, the country, before presenting the case study in the third section. This empirical part develops an econometric model in order to demonstrate the connection between urban concentration and crime, particularly homicides.

DADOS, Rio de Janeiro, vol.64 (1): e20190127, 2021, 35p.

By Andrés Fernández Arauz , and Camelie Ilie

Costa Rica faces an unprecedented challenge in the form of escalating violence concentrated within specific regions of the country. This report delves into the country's administrative divisions, shedding light on its eighty-two cantons, where critical security data is localized. Recent statistics up to September 2023 underline a concerning situation. While violence in Costa Rica remains lower than the regional average for Latin America, it is the country in the region where violence has grown the most since 1995. Levels of intentional homicide have surpassed the threshold of 10 per 100,000 people, which makes it an epidemic in the country according to the World Health Organization’s classification. Moreover, while violence remains a localized issue, the number of cantons surpassing ten homicides per 100,000 inhabitants has increased, especially in coastal and border regions Much of this increase can be attributed to organized crime and the proliferation of illegal weapons, which is made clear by the fact that the cantons that saw the most increase in violence are territories through which the entry and transit of drugs occur in the region. Beyond homicide, non-lethal assault and intimate partner violence are issues that have their own effects in society. While official statistics put the rate of assault at less than one percent, survey data shows the number to be close to 4 percent, and evenly spread between men and women. Intimate partner violence affects 7 percent of adult women, and has increased over the last few years. These statistics add to a diminishing perception of safety, with 65 percent of the population reporting feeling that the country is not safe. For women, the feeling of unsafety is even higher, with 73 percent of female respondents expressing that they feel a high likelihood of being assaulted, compared to 57 percent of male respondents. Specific recommendations are delineated to counter these challenges. First, a thorough reevaluation and update of previous social programs is imperative. This evaluation should delve deep into identifying flaws in the existing programs. Such scrutiny enables timely corrections and reveals valuable lessons to be gleaned from previous work. Second, a regional focus for targeted interventions is proposed. By channeling efforts into the six cantons witnessing the steepest rise in homicides, particularly those strategically located along coasts and borders, Costa Rica can address the problems at their source. These areas often serve as primary entry points for drug trafficking, requiring concentrated and specialized interventions. Finally, an integrated strategy involving local, national, and international stakeholders is emphasized. Present programs often lack alignment and coordination to address recent violence patterns, emphasizing the need for cohesive collaboration. This strategy should foster a cooperative spirit between local governments, ensuring harmonized and effective efforts. These joint initiatives can significantly curb violence in specific cantons by integrating local insights with national expertise

New York: NYU Center on International Cooperation, 2023. 46p.

By:Natalie Butler

The Washington/Baltimore HIDTA Information Bulletin by Butler et al. highlights the emergence of Bis(2,2,6,6-tetramethyl-4-piperidyl) sebacate (BTMPS), or Tinuvin 770, in Maryland’s illicit drug supply. BTMPS, an industrial UV stabilizer not approved for human use, was found in 0.7% of drug-positive samples (Jan–Mar 2025), often alongside fentanyl, heroin, and xylazine. It acts as a potent L-type calcium channel blocker and non-competitive antagonist at nicotinic receptors and does not respond to naloxone. First detected in 2024, BTMPS has since spread to at least 11 states. In New Mexico, it appeared in counterfeit M30 tablets with reports of severe withdrawal. Individuals who have used it describe BTMPS as smelling like bug spray or burning plastic.

Washington/Baltimore HIDTA Investigative Support Center , 2025. 3p.

By Diana Moldafsky

Drug overdose deaths in the U.S., including from synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, surged during the past 25 years, according to the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Congress appropriated approximately $1.33 billion dollars for the National Guard Counterdrug Program during fiscal year 2019 through fiscal year 2024. This program supports federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement with drug interdiction activities in 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, and U.S. Virgin Islands. The joint explanatory statement for the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024, includes a provision for GAO to review certain DOD and National Guard Bureau counterdrug instructions and examine whether they limit support for counterdrug efforts under the law. This report evaluates the extent to which (1) DOD and National Guard Bureau align their counterdrug policies with applicable federal counterdrug laws; and (2) DOD’s changes in guidance during fiscal year 2019 through fiscal year 2024 clarified how counterdrug activities could be conducted. GAO identified and reviewed federal counterdrug laws; evaluated relevant DOD and National Guard Bureau policies; and reviewed changes in DOD policies and guidance related to the implementation of domestic counterdrug activities during the past 6 fiscal years. GAO also interviewed DOD, federal law enforcement, and state National Guard officials. GAO also conducted site visits to locations in California and Texas.

Drug overdose deaths in the U.S., including those from fentanyl, surged over the past 25 years.

To reduce drug trafficking and criminal activity, the Department of Defense and the National Guard help support federal, state, local and tribal law enforcement. The counterdrug support services they offer include information analysis, translation and transcription, and air and ground surveillance.

DOD and the National Guard Bureau work to ensure their counterdrug policies match up with the activities described in federal laws. DOD periodically updates its guidance to further clarify what counterdrug activities can be conducted.

Washington DC: U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2025. 35p.

By Hale Utar

This paper examines how firms in an emerging economy are affected by violence due to drug trafficking. Employing rich longitudinal plant-level data covering all of Mexico from 2005–2010, and using an instrumental variable strategy that exploits plausibly exogenous spatiotemporal variation in the homicide rate during the outbreak of drug-trade related violence in Mexico, I show that violence has a significant negative impact on plant output, product scope, employment, and capacity utilization. Resilience to violence differs widely across different types of employment within firms and across firms with different characteristics. Employment decline is driven by blue collar employment only. Dissecting within- and cross-plant heterogeneity points to a local labor supply channel where particularly plants utilizing low-wage, female, blue-collar workers are impacted. Consistent with a blue-collar labor supply shock, the results show a positive impact on average blue-collar wages and a negative impact on average white-collar wages at the firm level. Output elasticity of violence is also shown to be larger among low-wage, female-intensive but also domestically buying and selling plants. These findings show the rise of drug violence has significant distortive effects on domestic industrial development in Mexico and shed light on the characteristics of the most affected firms and the channels through which they are affected.

Bonn: IZA – Institute of Labor Economics, 2022. 121p.

By Kathleen J. Frydl

According to a joint study conducted by Stanford University and the medical journal The Lancet, the opioid crisis is on track to claim 1.2 million U.S. lives in this decade. To better respond to this first-order public health crisis, this white paper proposes an alternative approach to international supply-side counternarcotics policy designed to reduce fentanyl-related overdose deaths. A new target for counternarcotics policy As Thomas R. Dye argues, policy models should “identify what is significant.”  This is the most crucial of all stages, Dye explains, given that “deciding what will be the problems is even more important than deciding what will be the solutions.” This white paper nominates the regulatory and other failures of governance that facilitate the traffic in illegally manufactured fentanyl as the appropriate target for U.S. supply-side counternarcotics policy. Most crucially, countries without established and enforced drug-production rules that fail to govern chemically similar “analogues,” and without established and enforced “know-your-customer” provisions for the transport of drugs or their precursors, tolerate deficits in governance which render them susceptible to large-scale traffic in illegally manufactured fentanyl. The international counternarcotics treaties currently relied upon as a basis for drug policy either do not address, or do not adequately respond to, these failures of governance. .A counternarcotics policy directed at governments differs markedly from the current approach to international supply-side policy, which assigns responsibility to Mexican criminal organizations and relies on law enforcement as the appropriate response. Notably, as several impartial reviews conducted by the Government Accountability Office and Congressional Research Service observe, counternarcotics policy premised on enforcement against criminal targets has gone without an evaluation “measuring impact, not output.” Equally significant, empirical analyses of drug enforcement suggest that drug traffickers respond to these interventions with competitive adaptation, leaving their networks more resilient and, in some cases, more autonomous. The counternarcotics framework offered here also differs from proposals put forward by drug policy reformers who identify demand for illicit drugs as most significant and, in response, propose a variety of interventions to diminish or more safely satisfy that demand, measuring the effects of these interventions on the reduction of overdose deaths. These crucial interventions notwithstanding, drug supply remains an urgent question for counternarcotics policy. Contrary to a standard narrative, illegally manufactured fentanyl did not appear in U.S. markets in response to demand among opioid users. Although Chinese and Mexican officials remonstrate their American counterparts by insisting that the demand for drugs lies at the heart of the opioid epidemic, research demonstrates that the market for fentanyl specifically is “supply-led”:  that is, users would prefer an opioid other than fentanyl.   Fentanyl is an efficiency gain for traffickers and a highly unreliable and dangerous product for its users. Additionally, the harm-reduction efforts supported by many drug reformers do little to reduce drug exposure, another key driver of overdose deaths. The model set forward here adopts elements of both current counternarcotics policy and the agenda of drug reformers:Supply matters, and so too does the crucial outcome of reducing overdose deaths.       

At the Niskanen Center, we believe policy should be informed by strong causal evidence. Sometimes, though, we encounter promising ideas that are so big or novel that no government has yet tried them, and so scant evidence of their effectiveness exists. Such is the case with the use of trade policy to limit deaths from fentanyl and its analogs in the United States. To begin to fill in the blank spaces around this issue, we asked the political historian Kathleen Frydl to explore the history and potential of trade policy as a shield against an unprecedented public health crisis. 

Trade policy once formed the basis for U.S. counternarcotics efforts, a time when Treasury Department officials threatened and used drastic sanctions like embargoes, along with subtler tools such as slower customs inspections. Over the past year, the President has threatened and implemented tariffs against our most prolific suppliers of illegally manufactured fentanyl. A tariff is a broad-stroke intervention, a direct tax on imports meant to protect a domestic industry. It punishes both domestic firms and foreign exporters, and it generates collateral damage, including supply chain disruptions and retaliation, without punishing specific bad actors. For these reasons, tariffs serve better as threats at the negotiating table than as tools of policy. To achieve a targeted outcome, a more targeted approach may deliver more–while disrupting less. 

A less-known alternative, border adjustments, might accomplish many of the same goals as tariffs – compelling other countries to pick up the tab for negative externalities they generate – but can be deployed within the existing framework of international trade agreements, making them an attractive option to address specific threats to public health and national security. A border adjustment levels the trade playing field, imposing costs on imports from other countries to account for costs borne by Americans. To quote from this paper, border adjustments “balance rather than bias trade.” 

That fentanyl has blown apart the old drug enforcement paradigm is widely noted among drug policy analysts. Produced in laboratories, often from legal and regulated substances, the drug is difficult to snuff out at its point of origin, and its potency and physical innocuousness make it hard to detect at customs checkpoints. In fact, most fentanyl seems to enter the country not on the backs of undocumented migrants, but nestled within freight or the luggage of seemingly legitimate commercial travelers. Meanwhile, evidence-based interventions meant to reduce demand work best to mitigate the harms of chronic opioid abuse but do little to reduce the danger of exposure to fentanyl, including unintentional consumption.

Border adjustments target the failures of governments that allow criminal activities to flourish. Placing governments in the target frame seems a logical way to incentivize the large-scale reforms needed to stem the flow of fentanyl. Criminals shift tactics and their organizations evolve; U.S. counternarcotics policy should be pegged to meaningful outcomes that will reduce overdose deaths, regardless of the current face of drug traffic. And, if governments refuse to implement needed reforms, at least border adjustments generate revenue to offset the high costs of harm reduction and drug treatment now borne by US taxpayers, insurers, and philanthropies.

We do not believe there is any one answer to the overdose epidemic. Synthetic opioid analogs are moving targets, changing almost daily in chemical composition and psychological effect. The drug trafficking organizations that distribute them and the chemical producers who supply their ingredients are sophisticated, often complex conglomerates. Threats of tariffs may satisfy an understandable urge to punch back at a foreign menace, but their effects on the human misery opioids cause is essentially untestable. This paper explores a more measured approach that may better serve the objectives of supply-side counternarcotics.

Washington, DC: Niskanen Center, 2025. 46p.

By The Drug Enforcement Administration

Mexican cartels’ production, trafficking, and distribution of powerful illicit synthetic drugs, chiefly fentanyla and methamphetamine, represent a dire threat to public health, the rule of law, and national security in the United States. The Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation Cartels (CJNG), together with their procurement, distribution, and financial support networks stretching across Latin America, China, and other key global nodes, remain the dominant threats for the trafficking of these and other drugs into the United States. In the 12-month period ending in October 2024, 84,076 Americans died from a drug overdose, according to the most recent available provisional statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), underscoring the devastating effect these cartels have on our country. Although these numbers show a 25 percent decline since the same 12-month period last year – when the country lost 112,910 people to drug poisonings – demonstrating positive momentum in the fight against these drugs and the organizations trafficking them, the threat remains grave. The trend is hopeful, however. October 2024 was the eleventh consecutive month in which CDC reported a reduction, and the current statistics represent the largest 12-month reduction in drug overdose deaths ever recorded. Fentanyl and other synthetic drugs, including methamphetamine, are the primary drivers of fatal drug overdose deaths nationwide, while other illicit drugs, such as cocaine, heroin, and diverted prescription opioids still contribute meaningfully to the drug threat landscape in the United States. However, overdose and poisoning deaths involving fentanyl and other synthetic opioids caused more deaths than all other categories of drugs. This exceptionally deadly drug – often pressed into pills resembling legitimate medications and presented as authentic to customers or mixed into other drugs – creates a heightened risk of fatal overdose for unsuspecting or otherwise opioid-naïve users. The production and trafficking of drugs by Mexican cartels has fundamentally altered the drug and criminal landscapes in North America. The cartels capitalize on the relative ease of synthetic drug production compared to the physical and environmental limitations of traditional plant-based drug production to generate immense revenues. The cartels maintain steady supply chains for obtaining the precursor chemicals, primarily from China and India, necessary to produce these synthetic drugs. The Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation Cartels, in particular, control clandestine production sites in Mexico, smuggling routes into the United States, and distribution hubs in key U.S. cities. The cartels work with U.S. drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) and violent gangs to distribute drugs throughout the country, all exploiting social media and messaging applications to extend their reach to a larger and younger customer base. The cartels’ extensive, complex, and adaptable networks present formidable challenges across the U.S. law enforcement, national security, regulatory, financial, and health and wellness sectors.  

Washington, DC: DEA, 2025. 80p.

By Jetson Leder-Luis and Anup Malani

Data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) indicate an unprecedented 43 percent increase in the number of people residing in homeless shelters in the United States between 2022 and 2024, reversing the gradual decline over the preceding sixteen years. Threequarters of this rise was concentrated in four localities – New York City, Chicago, Massachusetts, and Denver – where large inflows of new immigrants seeking asylum were housed in emergency shelters. Using direct estimates from local government sources and indirect methods based on demographic changes, we estimate that asylum seekers accounted for about 60 percent of the twoyear rise in sheltered homelessness during this period, challenging media and policy narratives that primarily attribute this rise to local economic conditions and housing affordability.

WORKING PAPER · NO. 2025-45

Chicago: University of Chicago, The Becker Friedman Institute for Economics, 2025. 21p.

By Amy Finkelstein, Sarah Miller, and Katherine Baicker

  Those involved with the criminal justice system have disproportionately high rates of mental illness and substance-use disorders, prompting speculation that health insurance, by improving treatment of these conditions, could reduce crime. Using the 2008 Oregon Health Insurance Experiment, which randomly made some low-income adults eligible to apply for Medicaid, we find no statistically significant impact of Medicaid coverage on criminal charges or convictions. These null effects persist for high-risk subgroups, such as those with prior criminal cases and convictions or mental health conditions. In the full sample, our confidence intervals can rule out most quasi-experimental estimates of Medicaid’s crime-reducing impact.  

WORKING PAPER · NO. 2024-158

Chicago: University of Chicago, The Becker Friedman Institute for Economics, 2024. 49p.

By Jens Ludwig and Kevin Schnepel

Do jobs and income-transfer programs affect crime? The answer depends on why one is asking the question, which shapes what one means by “crime.” Many studies focus on understanding why overall crime rates vary across people, places, and time; since 80% of all crimes are property offenses, that’s what this type of research typically explains. But if the goal is to understand what to do about the crime problem, the focus will instead be on serious violent crimes, which account for the majority of the social costs of crime. The best available evidence suggests that policies that reduce economic desperation reduce property crime (and hence overall crime rates) but have little systematic relationship to violent crime. The difference in impacts surely stems in large part from the fact that most violent crimes, including murder, are not crimes of profit but rather crimes of passion – including rage. Policies to alleviate material hardship, as important and useful as those are for improving people’s lives and well-being, are not by themselves sufficient to also substantially alleviate the burden of crime on society.

WORKING PAPER · NO. 2024-42

Chicago: University of Chicago, The Becker Friedman Institute for Economics, 2024. 29p.

By Marina Duane, Storm Ervin, Susan Nembhard, Roderick Taylor

Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, is one of the most populous counties in the United States, 1 and the sheer number of people who appear in courtrooms and need services there presents several challenges for responding to intimate partner violence (IPV). For example, in the Pittsburgh Municipal Court alone, 10,200 cases were filed in 2018, of which IPV cases constituted 16 percent (or 1,687 cases).2 The same is true for the child welfare system and family court, where IPV is one of the many issues clients face. To tackle this challenge, Allegheny County partners have made several notable strides in responding to IPV, including the following innovations: ◼ creating resource specialist positions in magisterial district judge (MDJ) courtrooms who now help divert aggressors into interventions and otherwise offer expedient connections to social services, which creates more options other than punishment ◼ becoming more trauma informed and family friendly at the family division of the Court of Common Pleas for survivors and families filing for Protection from Abuse (PFA) orders (figure 1 provides an example of a child-friendly playroom available to parents who come to the court to file a PFA order) ◼ initiating early screening for IPV at the Office of Children, Youth and Families and creating IPV specialist positions with the goal of helping families address IPV and reducing its negative impact on children without separating family members from one another From June 2018 to December 2020, researchers from the Urban Institute conducted a systemwide assessment of Allegheny County’s response to IPV. Based on a variety of data collection activities described in this report and in consultation with local partners, we developed the following three priority areas to improve interagency coordination and respond to IPV more effectively and efficiently: 1. Get the county’s top leaders to prioritize IPV over a defined period. Attention to the issue from the top can help mobilize individual agencies, enable IPV experts to turn recommendations into policies and practice, and direct resources where they can make the most impact. 2. Shift the focus from case outcomes to people’s experiences, especially during early encounters with formal services. Focusing on experiences can help overcome hesitancy and increase buy-in among aggressors and survivors. In turn, improved experiences can alleviate many survivors’ reluctance to turn to authorities or aggressors’ hesitancy to get help, through Battering Intervention Programs (BIPs). 3. Reinstitute and sustain IPV-focused fatality reviews and ensure they embrace a nonblaming culture. Moreover, identify the most critical system gaps and get assistance from leaders to implement the changes that the review team recommends. In addition to these interagency priorities, we also recommend that Allegheny County partners consider taking the following agency-specific steps: ◼ Establish a specialized IPV unit in the Allegheny County Public Defender office. ◼ Differentiate IPV from DV in the 911 system, in the PFA office, throughout the family division, and in all IPV-related cases coming through the child welfare system ◼ Record survivors’ information (including full names, date of birth, and other identifiers) consistently, and when possible ensure law enforcement and/or assistant district attorneys can safely and securely share survivors’ information with criminal and family division actors, the probation office, the Department of Human Services, and BIP providers. ◼ Prioritize and improve referrals to BIPs and play an active role in encouraging participants to view them as help (not as admissions of guilt) and in monitoring and encouraging attendance. ◼ Create a mechanism to consistently track aggressors’ and survivors’ experiences at system entry points.

Washington, DC: Urban Institute, 2021. 47p.

Elizabeth L. Beck,

Natasha N. Johnson,

Sommer Delgado,

Victoria Helmly,

Susan A. McLaren,

Alice Prendergast,

Leigh Alderman,

Lorenzo Almada,

Brian Bride,

Eric Napierala,

William J. Sabol

Using data from an evaluation of three Second Chance Act grantees, we explore formerly incarcerated people’s (FIP) access to housing. This study is unique in that it includes the perspectives of individuals with lived experiences and the insights of the reentry program providers working to meet their overall needs, including in the area of housing. The data come from reentry programs in three regions of the United States. Although the needs of the people with lived experiences have similarities, regional differences exist, particularly related to housing costs and supply, including the availability of transitional housing. Also, variations exist between FIP who are able to live with family compared with those who do not have this option. The three programs this study examined worked to address housing needs in distinctive ways and explores the housing needs of FIP and the strategies the three programs use to address these needs. Incorporating a two-pronged approach, this article includes analyses of (1) interview data with 31 FIP from 3 months to 3 years post-incarceration and (2) interviews and program materials to support formulative case analyses of the housing-related work that program enacted. Through this work, highlighting program efforts to remove barriers to housing for this population, the study seeks to promote the advancement of relevant policy, practice, and research in this arena.

Cityscape, 25(2): 2023.

By Andrew Scheibe, Shaun Shelly, M. J. Stowe

The illicit drug trade generates billions of dollars and sustains transnational criminal organisations. Drug markets can destabilise governance and undermine development. Data indicate increasing drug use in South Africa. However, information on the size and value of the drug market is limited. This is the first study to estimate the market value of cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine in South Africa. People who use drugs were meaningfully involved in all aspects of implementation. We used focus group discussions, ethnographic mapping, brief interviews, and the Delphi method to estimate the number of users, volumes consumed, and price for each drug in South Africa in 2020. Nationally, we estimated there to be: 400,000 people who use heroin (probability range (PR) 215,000–425,000) consuming 146.00 tonnes (PR 78.48–155.13) with a value of US$1,898.00 million (PR US$1,020.18–US$2,016.63); 350,000 people who use cocaine (PR 250,000–475,000) consuming 18.77 tonnes (PR 13.41–25.47) with a market value of US$1,219.86 million (PR 871.33–1,655.52) and 290,000 people who use methamphetamine (PR 225,000–365,000) consuming 60.19 tonnes (PR 6.58–10.68) and a market value of US$782.51 million (PR 607.12–984.88). The combined value was calculated at US$3.5 billion. Findings can be used to stimulate engagement to reform drug policy and approaches to mitigate the impact of the illicit drug trade. Additional studies that include people who use drugs in research design and implementation are needed to improve our understanding of drug markets.

Journal of Illicit Economies and Development, 5(3): pp. 1–17

By Police Executive Research Forum

Jurisdictions across the United States have struggled with a dramatic rise in carjackings since 2020, leaving police leaders with questions about why this spike is occurring, why juveniles are committing this crime in unprecedented numbers, and why carjacking numbers remained elevated when the number of homicides and aggravated assaults started to decline. With those questions in mind, the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) assembled a group of over 130 people from more than 50 different agencies for a National Summit on Carjacking in early 2024 in Washington, D.C. Throughout the day, police leaders, federal officials, local and federal prosecutors, researchers, executives, and business and community leaders discussed the situation in 7. D.C. Metropolitan Police Department. MPD Carjacking Dashboard. https://mpdc.dc.gov/page/carjacking. their communities and the challenges they have faced effectively addressing these incidents, particularly when juveniles are involved. Jurisdictions that have successfully brought their numbers down shared lessons learned and promising strategies for preventing carjackings. This report is drawn from the comments and observations of those who attended PERF’s summit and follow-up interviews. It looks at the carjacking problem in cities and counties across the country, offers insights into the factors causing the increase, and shares some of the innovative approaches jurisdictions are implementing — including the use of technology, data analysis, and cross-agency partnerships. The report includes 10 recommendations to help police and other stakeholders effectively respond to carjackings in their communities.

Washington, DC: Police Executive Research Forum, 2024. 62p.

By Allison Lind , Ryan P. Larson , Susan M. Mason , Christopher Uggen

There is abundant research showing the disproportionate impacts of violence on health in disadvantaged neighborhoods, making an understanding of recent violent crime trends essential for promoting health equity. Carjackings have been of particular interest in the media, although little research has been undertaken on this violent crime. We use interrupted time series models to examine the impact of the police killing of George Floyd on the spatiotemporal patterns of carjacking in Minneapolis in relation to neighborhood disadvantage. To provide grounding, we compare our results to the well-studied patterns of homicides. Results indicate that carjackings both increased and dispersed spatially after the murder of George Floyd and subsequent social unrest, more so than homicides. Socially disadvantaged neighborhoods experienced the greatest absolute increase while more advantaged neighborhoods saw a greater relative increase. The challenge ahead is to identify policy responses that will effectively curb such violence without resorting to harsh and inequitable policing and sentencing practices.

By Timantha Goff, et al.

Black migrants are subject to abuse and a disturbing pattern of racism, violence and harm at disproportionately higher incidence than non-Black migrants while in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), according to a groundbreaking report released today by Black-led and immigrants rights organizations.

Authored by the Black LGBTQIA+ Migrant Project (BLMP), Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI), UndocuBlack Network, and Freedom for Immigrants (FFI), the first-of-its-kind study draws on nearly 17,000 call records from FFI’s National Immigration Detention Hotline spanning a six year period.

The data reveal a disturbing pattern of abuse perpetrated against Black migrants by ICE, private detention contractors and officials at contracting jails. Key findings include:

28 percent of all abuse-related reports made to the FFI hotline come from Black migrants, despite accounting for only only six percent of the total ICE detention population;

In some detention facilities in Alabama, Georgia and Louisiana, Black migrants are almost twice as likely to experience abuse inside detention compared to non-Black migrants;

Black non-binary migrants are 3.5 times more likely to experience abuse in immigration detention;

A new FOIA request corroborated a previous study that found that 24 percent of all people in solitary confinement are Black;

Over 53 percent of the most high-intensity and life-threatening cases that FFI intervened on in the six year period were on behalf of Black migrants.

“No one should live in fear or face punishment like this, especially not for the color of their skin or where they were born,” said Moussa Haba, an author of the report and monitoring fellow with Freedom for Immigrants who was previously detained by ICE. “The United States calls itself the land of the free, but for this to be true, Black migrants like me deserve to live in freedom, not from behind bars. What I experienced in detention was the opposite of freedom. Significant trauma was inflicted upon me during this time. I was subject to an unending racism in detention, and our new report demonstrates that I am not alone. It’s clear that detention must end to stop this cycle of abuse—and our fight to abolish detention is really a fight for freedom.”

“Being detained as an immigrant and having to fight for my freedom, I have faced discrimination based on my race,” said Marlissa, a 22-year-old Bahamian woman from South Florida currently detained at the Baker County Detention Center in Florida. “I have faced a lot of racism, a lot of disrespect, and a lot of unfairness in this system. I was threatened with solitary confinement after officers used racial slurs against me. Being detained, it’s like you have no say and you have no rights. It’s as if they look at you like you're beneath them, and the door is just being slammed in your face like you're an animal. Once released and given a second chance, the first thing I want to do is see my family because it's been almost three years. Then I want to continue my enrollment in college to follow my dream, and I want to continue to try to be successful in life and be a role model to my siblings and society.”

“It is not shocking that Black migrants in detention describe their conditions as torture, because detention is torture,” said Ronald Claude, director of policy & advocacy with Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI). “Our report ‘Uncovering the Truth’ makes it clear that the U.S. immigration system is anti-Black. Detention is one of the enduring legacies of this country’s history of slavery and Jim Crow laws. Collecting race and ethnicity data is critical as it makes visible the Black people detained by the U.S. government.”

“The profit-driven mass incarceration system of the U.S. is built on the backs of formerly enslaved Black people and Black migrants,” said Haddy Gassama, policy and advocacy director of UndocuBlack Network. “White supremacist sentiments and anti-Blackness are not only endemic in the current systems of policing and immigration enforcement, they were the driving factors for the existence of these inhumane institutions. The U.S. has the world's largest carceral system, and Black folks bear the heaviest brunt of its cruelty. Immigration is a Black issue, and as long as the practice of detention exists, Black migrants will always face anti-Blackness within the system that was built to uniquely harm them. The findings of this report affirm the call for the complete abolition of all forms of detention.

Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI) , 2022. 31p.

By Vanya Petrova

Illicit cross-border financial flows – estimated at US$1–1.6 trillion a year globally – are harming economic development on a national and global level. This is particularly true when such flows originate in heavily étatist economies, with no effective division or independence of the private from the public or state-owned sector. Autocracies have long utilized obfuscated corporate ownership structures and illicit financial flows (IFFs) for nefarious purposes such as bribery, corruption and improper lobbying to secure anything from technologies and know-how to economic and political influence on countries of interest. Russia has established a pattern of malign economic impact in Europe through its cultivation of ‘an opaque network of patronage across the region that it uses to influence and direct decision-making’ in key markets and institutions. IFFs in the Balkan region, in particular, are manifold, multi-directional and, proportionally, large as a percentage of GDP. While global illicit outflows are 3–5% of world GDP, IFFs in the Balkans are estimated at about 6% of the region’s GDP. The common denominator of the Western Balkan countries is their vulnerabilities kindled by institutional weakness and state capture. IFFs promote rent-seeking and criminal behaviour, reduce governments’ capacity to support development and inclusive growth, undermine the rule of law and jeopardize the business environment. Illicit flows drain public resources, reduce the scope and quality of public services and, thus, undermine confidence in state institutions. The Kremlin has repeatedly taken advantage of its integration into the Western financial system to exploit governance gaps through the corrosive effect of illicit finance.7 The brutal invasion of Ukraine shed a harsh light on the sobering dangers of kleptocracy and the risks to which Europe – and the world – has exposed itself by taking a lax approach to dirty money. Russia’s war in Ukraine could exacerbate these circumstances and accelerate further IFFs in the Balkan region – a crucial entry point and essential route for a plethora of illegal activities, such as drug trafficking, human smuggling, illicit trade and contraband.8 Due to imposed travel bans, Serbia is one of the few remaining routes for Russians to establish themselves in the region. Since the start of the invasion of Ukraine, Russian nationals have registered more than 5 000 companies in Serbia, over 1 000 being limited liability companies and nearly 4 000 entrepreneurial businesses.9 The establishment of so many companies in the country offers fertile ground for money laundering.10 As observed in the Serbian national risk assessment by the Administration for the Prevention of Money Laundering, limited liability companies and entrepreneurs pose a particularly high degree of threat with respect to money laundering. Through such means wealthy Russians could seek investment opportunities and use existing connections to launder money in real estate and other sectors traditionally vulnerable to IFFs in the region. The primary goal of this report is to assess the major enablers and vulnerabilities of illicit finance in the eight Balkan countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia) after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. More concretely, the study aims to analyze the primary IFFs sources and channels in the region, and identify any emerging trends concerning modus operandi, routes, business models, use of information and communications technology. In addition, the study intends to inspect the pressing challenges to border control, police and anti-money laundering authorities to effectively prevent, investigate and counter organized crime involved in cash smuggling and money laundering. Finally, the report aims to suggest feasible recommendations for improvement. The analysis presented is based on information collected through mixed methods research consisting of qualitative and quantitative desk research and in-depth interviews with key professionals from different organizations and professional affiliations in the eight countries. A total of 15 semi-structured interviews were conducted with experts from regional organizations, customs agencies, national anti-money laundering authorities, national revenue agencies, national customs agencies and NGOs, as well as with journalists and academics. A guiding questionnaire with key questions and topics was shared with the field researchers to facilitate the work and to ensure consistency in the information collection process.

Geneva, SWIT: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC)’s , 2023. 24p.

By Lisa Cameron, Jennifer Seager, Manisha Shah

We examine the impact of criminalizing sex work, exploiting an event in which local officials unexpectedly criminalized sex work in one district in East Java, Indonesia, but not in neighboring districts. We collect data from female sex workers and their clients before and after the change. We find that criminalization increases sexually transmitted infections among female sex workers by 58 percent, measured by biological tests. This is driven by decreased condom access and use. We also find evidence that criminalization decreases earnings among women who left sex work due to criminalization, and decreases their ability to meet their children's school expenses while increasing the likelihood that children begin working to supplement household income. While criminalization has the potential to improve population STI outcomes if the market shrinks permanently, we show that five years post-criminalization the market has rebounded and the probability of STI transmission within the general population is likely to have increased.

Working Paper 27846

Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2020. 52p.