Interdiction Day: Covert Surveillance Operations, Drugs, and Serious Crime in an Inner-City Neighborhood

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

This article describes a drug trafficking interdiction in the Brightwood neighborhood in Indianapolis, Indiana. It defines terminology and effects of police crackdowns, interventions, and interdictions. The interdiction effort is empirically linked to decreases in crime (calls for service [CFS]) in the interdiction neighborhood over and above change in the control neighborhood— with one exception: drug CFS. The findings support the accumulation of evidence that interdictions based on problem-oriented policing can be successful. Short, largely invisible interdictions of this type can have positive impacts on reported neighborhood crime and in so doing might improve inner-city development options.