This paper focuses on the unintended consequences of the legalization of recreational marijuana within the state of Colorado. Toward this end, we examine the impact of our intervention series on tax revenue from the sale of all varieties of liquors (beer, wine, and spirits) and the number of fatal motor vehicle crashes involving alcohol. The results from the interrupted time series analyses indicate the legalization of recreational marijuana significantly increased tax revenue from alcohol sales and the number of fatal motor vehicle crashes involving alcohol. The implications of these findings for the evaluation of social policy are discussed.

On 22 August 1996, President Bill Clinton signed into law the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (House Bill, 3734). According to the final version of this legislation, this reduction in the size and cost of aid to the poor was to be accomplished by reducing the number of births to unmarried women, the number of births to teens, and by providing the motivation and means to enter the labour force. The interrupted time series analyses indicate that the implementation of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families [TANF] welfare programme did produce a substantial and lasting decline in the number of welfare recipients and in the birth rate per 1,000 women aged 15 to 19. However, there is no evidence that it did so because of its effect on the birth rate of unmarried women, household structure of families, or participation in the labour force.

This paper is concerned with changes over time in road safety. Most research, rooted in the deterrence hypothesis, focuses on the impact of reductions in the blood alcohol concentration (BAC) limits on crash-related fatalities. Our study, drawing on opportunity theories of social action, extends this research by examining the relative effects of safety innovations, exposure risk, and changes in BAC limits, on deaths resulting from motor vehicle accidents. The multivariate time series analyses indicate that the implementation of seatbelt legislation and the number of vehicle miles traveled directly affect, while the reduction of BAC limits indirectly affects, the number of crash-related fatalities. The implication of these findings for determining the optimal research design for assessing the impact of legislative initiatives on crash-related injuries and deaths are discussed.

The purpose of this study is to determine whether the decision to use one source of official data in lieu of another affects the assessment of social policy on crime. Specifically, we examine the effect of the implementation of stand your ground legislation on state and municipal compilations of residential and non-residential burglaries known to the police within a large, Midwestern city. The interrupted time series analyses of the state agency data reveal that the castle doctrine legislation led to a temporary decline in residential burglaries, but had no effect on non-residential burglaries. In contrast, our analyses of the city agency data indicate that this legislative initiative had no effect on residential burglaries, but did generate a permanent, monthly increase in the number of non-residential burglaries. The implications of these findings for the use of official crime statistics are discussed.

Most research, drawing on deterrence and rational choice models of social action, examines the effects of reductions of blood alcohol concentration [BAC] limits to secure drunk driving convictions on the total volume of crash fatalities. This paper extends this work by investigating the impact of New Jersey's BAC legislation on total and disaggregated crash fatalities. The results from the interrupted times series analyses show that reducing the BAC limit to 0.8 has no effect on total or driver fatalities, but has a negative and lasting effect on passenger fatalities. The implications of these findings for future research are discussed.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS:Electronic tracking systems (ETS) are used extensively in pharmacies across the United States and Australia to control suspicious sales of pseudoephedrine. This study measures the impact of one ETS-Project STOP-on the capacity of police to reduce production, supply and possession of methamphetamine.DESIGN:Using official police data of incidents of production, supply and possession from January 1996 to December 2011 (n = 192 data points/months over 16 years), we used a quasi-experimental, time-series approach.SETTING:The State of Queensland, Australia.PARTICIPANTS:No individual participants are included in the study. The unit of analysis is reported police incidents.MEASUREMENTS:The study examines the impact of the ETS on production (n = 5938 incidents), drug supply and trafficking (n = 20 094 incidents) and drug possession or use (n = 118 926) of methamphetamine.FINDINGS:Introduction of the ETS in November 2005 was associated with an insignificant decrease (P = 0.15) in the production of methamphetamine. The intervention was associated with a statistically significant increase in supply incidents (P = 0.0001). There was no statistically significant effect on the incidence of possession (P = 0.59).CONCLUSIONS:Electronic tracking systems can reduce the capacity of people to produce methamphetamine domestically, but seem unlikely to affect other aspects of the methamphetamine problem such as possession, distribution and importation.

Subsequent to Florida's enactment of the first castle doctrine law in 2005, no less than 22 additional states have passed some sort of legislation that allows civilians to use deadly force to protect their property from violent and nonviolent offenders. Given the pervasiveness of these legislative acts, it becomes increasing important to find out whether or not they achieve their manifest goal of reducing the amount of crime within a jurisdiction. Toward this end, we employ interrupted time series modeling techniques to assess the impact of Oklahoma's Stand Your Ground Law on the number of residential and non-residential burglaries. The findings indicate that while the legislative initiative achieved its manifest goal of reducing the number of residential burglaries, it simultaneously had the unintended consequence of increasing the number of non-residential burglaries.

On May 11, 2009, the City of San Marcos, Texas adopted an ordinance that allowed local bars to extend their hours of operation from midnight until 2 a.m. The objective of this initiative, which went into effect on June 4, 2009, was to minimize the problems that arise from the consumption of alcohol. The present investigation uses interrupted time series autoregressive integrated moving average [ARIMA]) modeling techniques to analyze weekly data to assess the impact of the ordinance, along with a limited increase in patrol strength in the downtown district, on the number of calls for service involving verbal disturbances, physical disturbances, public intoxication, and driving under the influence of alcohol. Overall, the interrupted time series analyses indicate that neither the city council’s nor the police department’s strategies for mitigating some of the negative consequences of the consumption of alcoholic beverages in bars and taverns were successful. The implications of these findings for lessening alcohol-related conflicts between bar patrons and other residents of the community are discussed.

The objective of our article is straightforward. We seek to derive, and to confront with data, an empirical model of Robert K. Merton's macro-level, anomie theory of profit-motivated crime. We use Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression equations to estimate the joint effects of measures of the acceptance of material success goals and absolute and relative deprivation, respectively, on cross-national rates of drug trafficking. Consistent with the predictions derived from Mertonian anomie theory, the coefficients for the product terms (the acceptance of success goalsxabsolute deprivation and the acceptance of success goalsxrelative deprivation) are significant and positive. This investigation provides what we believe is the first evaluation of the Mertonian proposition that the cultural (goals) and structural (means) components of social systems operate together to increase the level of profit-motivated crime. What is missing, of course, is a measure of anomie. We are forced to infer that anomie is the causal mechanism that links the joint influence of culture and social structure on pecuniary crime. Admittedly, this is an unavoidable limitation of the current investigation.

Most research, drawing on the conflict perspective of social control, examines the causal influence of integrative control (welfare, racial residential segregation) on coercive control (police resources, incarceration). Unfortunately, the results from these studies tend to be inconsistent; often varying across eras, research designs, model specifications, and outcome variables. The present investigation, which is also rooted in conflict theory, attempts to make sense of these disparate findings. Toward this end, we use factor analytic, time series procedures to determine whether or not there is a single underlying dimension of macro-social control (the Quinney hypothesis) or if there are two dimensions of macro-social control (Blauner-Spitzer hypothesis). In brief, the results from the factor analyses of annual, national-level measures of welfare recipients, military personnel, psychiatric hospital patients, policing expenditures, and imprisonment fail to confirm either hypothesis concerning the interrelationships among differing mechanisms of macro-social control.

Purpose - Consistent with both conflict and economic theories of crime control, recent research indicates that there is a linear, positive association between the racial composition of cities and black employment as law enforcement officers. The purpose of this paper is to distinguish between these competing explanations for variations in the racial make-up of police departments and examine the nonlinear effects of the relative population size of blacks on black police force size for a sample of US cities. Design/methodology/approach - The paper specifies and estimates four OLS regression equations to assess the linear and nonlinear effects of the percentage of blacks on black police force size for a sample of US cities. Findings - As predicted by economic theory, the percentage of blacks exhibits a positive, nonlinear relationship with black police force size. Thus, it would appear that as their relative population size increases, blacks are able to translate their numerical advantage into pressure resources to secure coveted positions in law enforcement. Research limitations/implications - While the demonstration of a significant, nonlinear relationship between the percentage of blacks and black police force size lends substantial credence to economic theory, it reveals nothing about the manner in which numerical advantage is converted into political clout and, ultimately, employment in law enforcement (or other municipal agencies). Clearly, if a better understanding this process us ti be gained, measures need to be identified and devised for the casual mechanisms that mediate the influence of the relative population size of blacks on black police force size. Originality/value - This paper represents the first attempt to distinguish between economic and conflict explanations for variations in black police force size among municipalities.

OBJECTIVES:We took advantage of a natural experiment to assess the impact on suicide mortality of a suite of Russian alcohol policies.METHODS:We obtained suicide counts from anonymous death records collected by the Russian Federal State Statistics Service. We used autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) interrupted time series techniques to model the effect of the alcohol policy (implemented in January 2006) on monthly male and female suicide counts between January 2000 and December 2010.RESULTS:Monthly male and female suicide counts decreased during the period under study. Although the ARIMA analysis showed no impact of the policy on female suicide mortality, the results revealed an immediate and permanent reduction of about 9% in male suicides (Ln ω0 = -0.096; P = .01).CONCLUSIONS:Despite a recent decrease in mortality, rates of alcohol consumption and suicide in Russia remain among the highest in the world. Our analysis revealed that the 2006 alcohol policy in Russia led to a 9% reduction in male suicide mortality, meaning the policy was responsible for saving 4000 male lives annually that would otherwise have been lost to suicide. Together with recent similar findings elsewhere, our results suggest an important role for public health and other population level interventions, including alcohol policy, in reducing alcohol-related harm.

BACKGROUND:The aim of this study was to determine the impact of a set of 2006 Russian alcohol policies on alcohol-related mortality in the country.METHODS:We used autoregressive integrated moving average interrupted time series techniques to model the impact of the policy on the number of sex-specific monthly deaths of those aged 15+ years due to alcohol poisoning, alcoholic cardiomyopathy, alcoholic liver cirrhosis, and alcohol-related mental and behavioral disorders. The time series began in January 2000 and ended in December 2010. The alcohol policy was implemented in January 2006.RESULTS:The alcohol policy resulted in a significant gradual and sustained decline in male deaths due to alcohol poisoning (ωo = -92.631, p < 0.008, δ1 = 0.883, p < 0.001) and in significant immediate and sustained declines in male (ω0 = -63.20, p < 0.05) and female (ω0 = -64.28, p < 0.005) deaths due to alcoholic liver cirrhosis.CONCLUSIONS:The 2006 suite of alcohol policies in Russia was responsible for an annual decline of about 6,700 male alcohol poisoning deaths and about 760 male and about 770 female alcoholic liver cirrhosis deaths. Without the alcohol policy, male alcohol poisoning deaths would have been 35% higher and male and female alcoholic liver cirrhosis deaths would have been 9 and 15% higher, respectively. We contextualize our findings in relation to declining mortality in Russia and to results from recent studies of the impact of this law on other causes of death.

AIMS:To determine the impact of a suite of 2006 Russian alcohol control policies on deaths due to traffic accidents in the country.DESIGN, SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS:We used autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) interrupted time-series techniques to model the impact of the intervention on the outcome series. The time-series began in January 2000 and ended in December 2010. The alcohol policy was implemented in January 2006, providing 132 monthly observations in the outcome series, with 72 months of pre-intervention data and 60 months of post-intervention data.MEASUREMENTS:The outcome variables were the monthly number of male- and female-specific deaths of those aged 15+ years due to transport accidents in Russia.FINDINGS:The 2006 set of alcohol policies had no impact on female deaths due to traffic accidents (ω0  = -50.31, P = 0.27). However, the intervention model revealed an immediate and sustained monthly decrease of 203 deaths due to transport accidents for males (ω0  = -203.40, P = 0.04), representing an 11% reduction relative to pre-intervention levels.CONCLUSION:The implementation of the suite of 2006 Russian alcohol control policies is partially responsible for saving more than 2400 male lives annually that would otherwise have been lost to traffic accidents.

On 24 April 2006 the Governor of Arizona signed into law a series of amendments to Title 13 of the Arizona Revised Statutes (Senate Bill 1145 2006). A key feature of this legislation, the so-called ‘stand your ground’ provision, states that individuals have no duty to retreat before opting to use deadly physical force to thwart the commission of a variety of violent offenses (Senate Bill 1145, Section 13–411 2006). The purpose of the study is to determine whether or not the modification of the criteria for the justification for the use of deadly force by civilians achieved its manifest goal of making individuals more capable of resisting violent crime or had the unintended consequence of increasing the likelihood that individuals would experience a violent death. The interrupted time series analyses indicate that, contrary to legislative intent, the implementation of Arizona's Self-Defense, Home Protection Act made life more dangerous for those living within the state.

Racial bias in traffic enforcement has become a popular line of inquiry, but examinations into explanations for the disparity have been scant. The current research integrates theoretical insights from the racial threat hypothesis with inferences drawn from the empirical analyses of the factors that stimulate officer suspicion. The most intriguing finding from this beat-level examination of the structural predictors of several traffic stop outcome measures concerns the conditional effect of the racial composition of the beat on search rates. The analyses reveal that the search rate increases in areas where the proportion of Black residents is higher; however, this finding is observed only for White motorists. This finding is interpreted as indicating that structural characteristics of an area can provide cues to officers regarding who belongs in that environment. As a result, social control increases among groups whose racial characteristics are inconsistent with the neighborhood racial composition.

The disproportionate minority confinement (DMC) mandate was included in the reauthorization of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act in 1988 and required states to assess the extent DMC was evident and to develop strategies to address the issue. The DMC mandate was designed to achieve equal treatment of youth within the juvenile justice system. In the present study, we analyzed the predictors of juvenile justice decision-making before and after the mandate to determine the impact of possible changes in the relative influence of legal criteria and extralegal considerations, especially race, on case outcomes in one juvenile court. The findings indicate that the factors impacting decision-making, for the most part, did not change in significance or relative impact though some unanticipated race effects were found at judicial disposition following the mandate.

The results from prior examinations of the benign neglect hypothesis are mixed. The current research seeks to determine the extent to which aggregation bias can account for these inconsistencies. Guided by insights from the policing literature, characteristics of the social contexts of police districts in a Midwestern city are used to explore the relationship between racial conflict and police behavior. The results from autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) analyses of the influence of a race riot on arrests fail to produce evidence of benign neglect at the city level. However, when data are disaggregated to the police district level of analysis evidence of benign neglect is found in the area of the city where the least powerful, black residents reside. The implications of these findings are discussed.