Substance Abuse Treatment Centers and Local Crime

Samuel R. Bondurant, Jason M. Lindo, Isaac D. Swensen

NBER Working Paper No. 22610
Issued in September 2016
NBER Program(s):Health Care Program, Health Economics Program, , Public Economics Program

In this paper we estimate the effects of expanding access to substance-abuse treatment on local crime. We do so using an identification strategy that leverages variation driven by substance-abuse-treatment facility openings and closings measured at the county level. The results indicate that substance-abuse-treatment facilities reduce both violent and financially motivated crimes in an area, and that the effects are particularly pronounced for relatively serious crimes. The effects on homicides are documented across three sources of homicide data.

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Document Object Identifier (DOI): 10.3386/w22610

Published: Samuel R. Bondurant & Jason M. Lindo & Isaac D. Swensen, 2018. "Substance Abuse Treatment Centers and Local Crime," Journal of Urban Economics, .

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