The association between blighted property remediation and domestic crime by alcohol availability.

Abstract

There is increasing evidence that place-based interventions reduce crime and interpersonal violence in urban settings. However, evidence concerning the impacts of these neighborhood interventions on domestic crime (crime between intimate partners, family, or household members) is inconclusive. We used data from a New Orleans, Louisiana, place-based blighted property remediation intervention to test the hypothesis that the intervention was associated with changes in domestic crime. Because there is evidence that alcohol availability is related to domestic crime, we also assessed whether this association was moderated by alcohol outlet density. We assessed overall associations using a difference-in-difference approach and assessed moderation using a triple-difference approach. The analytic sample consisted of 204 remediated lots and 612 non-remediated matched control lots over 84 months (2011-2017), for a total of 68,544 lot-months. In difference-in-differences analyses, the place-based intervention was associated with additional domestic crime incidence (β=0.311, 95% CI: 0.016, 0.605; p=0.039). In triple-difference analyses, on-premise bar density modified this association (β=-0.119, 95%CI: -0.147, -0.092; p<0.001): in areas with higher bar density, increases in domestic crime were lower near remediated lots compared with control lots. Place-based interventions to reduce blighted properties may have contributed to fewer domestic crime incidents in areas with more bars.