Public calls for service to the police: Trends before and during drug possession decriminalization in Oregon

Abstract

Background

Public requests made via 911 calls-for-service (CFS) systems data provide a perspective on a community’s concerns and demand for police resources. Oregon decriminalized possession of personal amounts of all controlled substances between February 2021 and August 2024 and increased funding for behavioral health services via Ballot Measure 110 (M110).

Methods

Publicly available CFS data from Portland and Eugene, Oregon, and from nearby comparably sized cities in states without drug decriminalization, were used to compare potential impact of M110 on 911 use overall and for violent, property, and drug-related crimes and quality-of-life/disorder calls from 2018 to 2023 (N = 9260,428 CFS). The data were analyzed using an autoregressive integrated moving average interrupted time series approach.

Results

We found minimal changes to the trends in police calls for service before and after the enactment of M110 across all types of CFS examined. Observed changes between the forecasted and actual CFS resemble differences observed across comparably sized cities in regional states that did not decriminalize drugs. The deviations between observed and forecasted values centered on zero and fell within the 95 % forecasting confidence bands for all CFS categories. This is true for both the initial decriminalization period and the full enactment period with behavioral health services.

Conclusion

Drug decriminalization did not contribute to a sustained change in reported CFS volume in Oregon cities after M110 enactment, with even fewer variations once additional behavioral health services were fully funded. Our results are consistent with routine activity theory interpretation of the seasonality of criminal behaviors.