Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Opioid related deaths are a major issue facing policy makers due to their dramatic increase over the past two decades in both Canada and the United States. While supervised consumption sites (SCSs) are a policy tool used in Canada to reduce overdose deaths, they may also negatively affect communities via increased crime. Moreover, their relatively infrequent use as a policy instrument leaves them largely unexplored by economists. This study uses variation in site openings between 2016 and 2018 in Toronto to estimate their impact on reported crime. My fixed effects model show small but significant monthly increases in the total number of reported crimes for those neighbourhoods where a site opens. This is driven by break and enters and thefts which show monthly increases in levels by 2.0 and 0.3 reported crimes, respectively. The event study shows no change in reported crimes in a three month window surrounding site openings. Policy makers should consider, however small, the possible changes to the total amount of crime when considering SCSs as a policy prescription.