Good Markets Make Bad Neighbors

In their manuscript, Corsaro, Hunt, Kroovand Hipple, and McGarrell (2012, this issue) provide a valuable contribution to the literature regarding focused deterrence with an econometric evaluation of the High Point Drug Market Intervention (DMI). By employing a difference-in-difference Poisson panel regression framework, as well as group-based trajectory analyses, these authors examine the High Point DMI’s likely impact on neighborhood violence. In their main result, Corsaro et al. (2012) find an incidence rate ratio of 0.854 in violent crime incidence within the targeted intervention areas—roughly speaking, a 14% decline. These authors also find no statistically significant change (indeed some decline) in nearby neighborhoods associated with the intervention, allaying concerns that the DMI simply displaced criminal activity from targeted areas to nearby communities. These findings seem statistically credible. Point estimates are robust to a variety of sensitivity analyses. The Corsaro et al. (2012) article provides a valuable contribution to the literature regarding an important specific intervention, as well as to the broader conversation regarding innovative approaches to drug policy exemplified by the High Point DMI. Both drug policy hawks and drug policy doves have special reason to embrace this intervention. To hawks, such interventions represent an effective strategy to maximize law enforcement leverage to disrupt drugmarkets and reduce violent offending. To doves, seeking to soften the individual and community harms associated with severe sanctions for drug offenses, interventions such as the High Point DMI are especially attractive because they offer the promise of improving