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Assessing the impact of safety interventions on open drug markets in a small Swedish municipality using synthetic control methods
KTH, School of Architecture and the Built Environment (ABE), Urban Planning and Environment, Urban and Regional Studies. (UCS – Urban and Community Safety Research Group)ORCID iD: 0000-0001-5302-1698
LEADER – Applied Economics and Regional Development Laboratory, Department of Economics, UFS Federal University of Sergipe, Aracaju, Brazil.ORCID iD: 0000-0001-7195-9364
KTH, School of Architecture and the Built Environment (ABE), Urban Planning and Environment, Urban and Regional Studies. (UCS – Urban and Community Safety Research Group)ORCID iD: 0009-0001-6341-4927
2026 (English)In: Journal of Experimental Criminology, ISSN 1573-3750, E-ISSN 1572-8315, Vol. 22, no 2, p. 275-308Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

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.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Springer Nature , 2026. Vol. 22, no 2, p. 275-308
Keywords [en]
Crime prevention, Nearest neighbor cluster technique, Open drug market, Synthetic control
National Category
Other Legal Research Criminology
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-385859DOI: 10.1007/s11292-024-09652-7ISI: 001387227700001Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85213720923OAI: oai:DiVA.org:kth-385859DiVA, id: diva2:2087405
Note

QC 20260720

Available from: 2026-07-20 Created: 2026-07-20 Last updated: 2026-07-20Bibliographically approved

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Ceccato, VaniaJorge, Marco AntonioGliori, Gabriel
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