“It’s illegal to buy drugs from street dealers”: A Video-Based Pre-Post Study of a Behavioral Intervention to Displace Dealers from an Amsterdam Open-Air Drug Market
Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
Objectives A high number of street dealers operate in the Red Light District in
Amsterdam, The Netherlands. To displace the dealers, the Municipality of Amsterdam installed text-based light projections in a street attracting a high number of dealers.
Methods To evaluate the intervention, we did a pre-post analysis of video footage from two CCTV cameras located in the street. In total, we analyzed 765 one-minute segments of footage from before and after the implementation.
Results The implementation was followed by a four percentage point reduction in street dealers. However, the estimated efect shows fragileness with wide confdence intervals and a p-value just below 0.05, and a Bayesian robustness analysis suggests that the intervention was not associated with the outcome.
Conclusions Analyzing CCTV-footage ofers a unique avenue for evaluating small
scale interventions in open-air drug markets. While we observed a decrease in the presence of dealers, the intervention still needs further validation.
Amsterdam, The Netherlands. To displace the dealers, the Municipality of Amsterdam installed text-based light projections in a street attracting a high number of dealers.
Methods To evaluate the intervention, we did a pre-post analysis of video footage from two CCTV cameras located in the street. In total, we analyzed 765 one-minute segments of footage from before and after the implementation.
Results The implementation was followed by a four percentage point reduction in street dealers. However, the estimated efect shows fragileness with wide confdence intervals and a p-value just below 0.05, and a Bayesian robustness analysis suggests that the intervention was not associated with the outcome.
Conclusions Analyzing CCTV-footage ofers a unique avenue for evaluating small
scale interventions in open-air drug markets. While we observed a decrease in the presence of dealers, the intervention still needs further validation.
Original language | English |
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Journal | Journal of Experimental Criminology |
Number of pages | 18 |
ISSN | 1573-3750 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | E-pub ahead of print - 22 Dec 2023 |
Links
- https://psyarxiv.com/gnvhy/
Submitted manuscript
ID: 377057434