What You Find Depends on Where You Look

• Author: Julie Hibdon,Elizabeth R. Groff
• DOI: 10.1177/1043986214525077
• Published date: 01 May 2014
• Date: 01 May 2014
• Subject Matter: Articles

Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice

2014, Vol. 30(2) 169 –185

© 2014 SAGE Publications

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DOI: 10.1177/1043986214525077

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Article

What You Find Depends

on Where You Look:

Using Emergency Medical

Services Call Data to

Target Illicit Drug Use

Hot Spots

Julie Hibdon1 and Elizabeth R. Groff2

Abstract

Geographically targeting law enforcement at drug hot spots is a common response

to drug problems, but because they are generated with police data, they only

reflect what the police already know about narcotics crime. In this study, we

illustrate the importance of using multiple data sets to characterize the micro-

spatial distribution of illicit drug events in Seattle, Washington, by examining and

comparing the Seattle Fire Department’s Emergency Medical Services (EMS) calls

and Seattle Police Department’s crime incidents in 2004. We find that both EMS

calls and police incidents indicate illicit drug use is concentrated at a small number

of street segments, yet their spatial patterning is different. Together, the two data

sources identify new street segments as “hot places” of drug use suggesting that

law enforcement agencies should incorporate EMS data to more accurately locate

drug hot spots.

Keywords

Emergency Medical Services (EMS) data, drug hot spots, street segment, drug use,

concentration, policing

1Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL, USA

2Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA

Corresponding Author:

Julie Hibdon, Assistant Professor, Southern Illinois University, Faner Hall, MC 4504, Carbondale, Illinois,

62901, USA.

Email: jhibdon@siu.edu

525077CCJXXX10.1177/1043986214525077Journal of Contemporary Criminal JusticeHibdon and Groff

research-article2014

170 Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice 30(2)

Illicit drug problems in the United States are typically addressed through law enforce-

ment by targeting drug sellers and those in possession of drugs. In 2007, of the reported

14.2 million arrests nationwide, 1.84 million were the result of drug abuse violations1

(Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2010). Common drug enforcement activities used by

departments range from basic crackdown approaches (see Sherman & Rogan, 1995;

Weisburd & Green, 1995; Weisburd & Mazerolle, 2000) to more focused and tailored

strategies such as pulling levers initiatives aimed at specific drug markets (see Corsaro,

Brunson, & McGarrell, 2013; Corsaro & McGarrell, 2009). Although enforcement

activities vary, these strategies all target places with concentrations of reported drug

problems. This geographic focus is reasonable considering studies have found drug-

related activity to be concentrated geographically (Taniguchi, Ratcliffe, & Taylor,

2011; Weisburd & Green, 1995; Weisburd & Mazerolle, 2000).

In the case of drug crimes, places come to the attention of police because of citizen-

reported illicit drug activity such as the sale or distribution of drugs or proactive polic-

ing activity. These data are used to diagnose and target drug hot spots. However, they

only provide a portion of the drug problem puzzle. Emergency Medical Services

(EMS) data describing drug overdoses offer another source of information and may

help ensure that important drug hot spots do not go unnoticed. Having a more com-

plete picture is important because hot spot enforcement practices that are only partially

informed may be a contributing factor to some of the backfire effects that are often

cited in response to these strategies such as spatial displacement (Lawton, Taylor, &

Luongo, 2005; Werb et al., 2011) and increased health risks such as overdose (Kerr,

Small, & Wood, 2005; Maher & Dixon, 2001) and infectious diseases (Aitken, Moore,

Higgs, Kelsall, & Kerger, 2002; Maher & Dixon, 1999, 2001).

This article investigates the utility of data from EMS for enhancing our understand-

ing of the geographic pattern of illicit drug use. Recent efforts suggest the efficacy of

linking health and law enforcement data to address public health issues that touch both

disciplines (Florence, Shepherd, Brennan, & Simon, 2011; Shepherd, Sivarajasingam,

& Rivara, 2000; Sutherland, Sivarajasingam, & Shepherd, 2002). Here, spatial pat-

terns of EMS data are compared with those based on official police incident data. We

hypothesize that each data set captures different aspects of the drug problem puzzle,

but they sometimes also have overlapping information. We then explore the character-

istics of this more complete picture of drug abuse and its utility for targeting enforce-

ment and prevention interventions at hot spots of drug activity.

The Geography of Drug Markets and Drug Use

Prior research finds that drug markets and drug-related crime incidents concentrate at

micro-places (Sherman & Rogan, 1995; Taniguchi et al., 2011; Weisburd & Green,

1995; Weisburd & Mazerolle, 2000). Often, these drug locations consist of a very

small proportion of locations within a city. One study suggests that 46% of narcotics

arrests are concentrated at just 4.4% of street segments (Weisburd & Mazerolle, 2000).

In addition to being concentrated, places with drug activity also tend to be spatially

clustered within certain regions of a city (Taniguchi, Rengert, & McCord, 2009;