Impacts of the Tenderloin Center Safe Consumption Site on Measures of Crime and Disorder Reporting

Abstract

Safe consumption sites are spaces where individuals are able to bring and consume pre-obtained illicit substances in a monitored setting. While there are over one hundred safe consumption sites internationally, only two sanctioned sites have opened in the United States. A nascent literature suggests that the implementation of a safe consumption site has null or protective effects on recorded measures of crime and public disorder in the immediate vicinity of the site, but few studies examine this relationship in the United States. The current study investigates the relationship between the opening of an unsanctioned safe consumption site on spatial trends of incident reports and calls for service in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco. A difference-in-differences research design is employed to measure the effect of the safe consumption site's opening on nearby measures of crime and disorder, using spatial econometric methods to model potential spillover effects. Analyses demonstrate divergent results between calls for service and incident report outcomes across multiple crime categories, with several models providing support for crime displacement within 2 km of the site. These findings complicate those of prior studies, suggesting that the outcomes associated with safe consumption site implementation are largely context dependent and warrant further investigation as future US sites open.