Motivation: Decriminalizing drug possession is a potential tool to disentangle the racial inequalities caused by drug prohibition. While possession decriminalization has been implemented in multiple countries, it had never been adopted in the US except for cannabis possession offenses. That changed when voters in Oregon passed Measure 110 (M-110) in 2020. M-110 made the personal possession of controlled substances a noncriminal offense that could be resolved by paying a fine or undergoing an assessment. While M-110 also increased funding for services for people who use drugs, there was a delay in new expenditures which created a natural experiment where the primary change was just decriminalization. This study examines whether decriminalization changed racial disparities in arrests.
Methods: Incident-level and aggregated arrest data are drawn from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Incident Based Reporting System and Uniform Crime Reports. Synthetic control and difference-in-differences designs will be used to evaluate how M-110 affected arrest patterns by race, along with sensitivity analyses to test modeling assumptions. Comparing these results across race, such as looking at how arrest rates changed in absolute and relative terms, will reveal whether M-110 affected racial inequality in arrests. Analyses will be conducted for arrests overall and by offense (e.g., drug possession and supply by substance; violent crime; property crime.)
Results: Analyses will be completed in April.
Implications: Results will provide evidence on whether decriminalization leads to a reduction in racial disparities in arrests for drugs and other offenses.