TARGETED ENFORCEMENT AND ADVERSE SYSTEM SIDE EFFECTS: THE GENERATION OF FUGITIVES IN PHILADELPHIA*

Abstract

Research on targeted enforcement in high‐crime places has focused on direct crime‐reduction impacts, possible displacement of crime, and more recently, diffusion of benefits to adjacent areas. Studies have ignored other unanticipated negative effects that a place‐oriented enforcement intervention may have on the justice system overall. Using the generation of fugitive defendants as one possible example of an important system side effect, this study proposes hypotheses relating to adverse, generalized, system side effects of a place‐ and crime‐focused intervention, and it tests for target area and targeted crime‐type effects, nontarget area and nontargeted crime‐type effects, and overall system effects.The analysis employs a multiple interrupted time‐series design [auto‐regressive integrated moving average (ARIMA)] to test the impact of one widely publicized, geographically targeted drug‐enforcement strategy in Philadelphia (Operation Sunrise, formally launched in June 1998) on the incidence of bench warrants as a measure of fugitives (weekly aggregate bench warrants series for the period January 1994–May 2005; N= 590 observations). The findings appear to support all hypotheses as they relate to the example of the generation of fugitives, and suggest a generalized system adverse side effect from the circumscribed place‐ and crime‐focused intervention. The implications of the findings for both research and policy relating to targeted enforcement interventions are discussed.