Transforming Criminal Justice Responses to Substance Use: Impacts on Crime, Housing, and Health Outcomes
Impact: In 2022, thanks to the successful local agency collaboration and to the research created by Arora and Bencsik, at the time both at the University of Chicago Crime Lab, the Mayor’s Office of Chicago decided to substantially expand the drug diversion program. The expansion included broadening the range of drugs eligible for diversion (to include for example ketamine and methamphetamine) and increase the quantity of drugs eligible, among other aspects. Overall, the expansion nearly doubled the number of drug users eligible to be connected to treatment in place of further criminal justice system processing. Notably, compared to one of the most wide-spread criminal justice system responses to drug use, drug courts, the program reaches substantially more individuals. For example, in Chicago the program serves ten times as many individuals per month as Cook County’s drug court, where drug courts are also resource-intensive, often requiring multiple years of oversight of the individuals. Today, the Narcotics Arrest Diversion Program continues to run as the nation’s largest police-led effort to link justice-involved individuals to substance use treatment.
Researchers: Panka Bencsik
Summary:
Drug overdose deaths in the U.S. reached a record high of 107,941 in 2022, three quarters of which involved opioids. More Americans die from opioid overdoses than from homicides or car accidents yearly, including in Chicago, where the homicide rate is exceptionally high. Traditional responses to the opioid crisis have been punitive—criminal sanctions or the threat of criminal sanctions—which increase contact with the criminal justice system without necessarily addressing underlying substance use disorders. This research evaluates an alternative approach to addressing the opioid crisis, the Narcotics Arrest Diversion Program, the US’s largest drug arrest diversion program. This program is based in Chicago and was created in 2018 in a partnership between the Chicago Police Department, the Chicago High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, the Chicago Department of Public Health, and community behavioral health provider Thresholds.
Chicago’s drug diversion program seeks to address the root causes of opioid use by offering treatment in lieu of prosecution. Those eligible for diversion are connected with a substance use counselor, are released without criminal charges, and face no threat of future prosecution related to the arrest. In a large-scale study, Arora and Bencsik evaluate the impacts of this policy, finding that it serves individuals with very high rates of substance use disorder and that individuals actively engage with the treatment. Meanwhile, using a causal inference design (triple difference design), the research finds that those eligible for diversion are significantly less likely to be rearrested, including for drug crimes and violent crimes. Lastly, the study finds that the program does not impact the likelihood of experiencing a fatal or non-fatal overdose. Overall, this evidence suggests that drug arrest diversion is potentially able to reduce the demand for drugs and make communities safer, while reducing the reach of the criminal justice system, making it a promising approach for other jurisdictions struggling with high levels of opioid use.