This dissertation is an attempt to determine the impact of the "War on Drugs" in the United States. The focus is on the opportunity costs of scarce drug enforcement resources, that are often not emphasized enough, resulting in forgone opportunities and the inefficient allocation of scarce criminal justice resources. Hypotheses concerning the causes and consequences of drug enforcement policy during 1984 and 1989 are developed using empirical models that are standard in the economics of crime literature. / The data set used in the empirical models consists of somewhat unique state level drug arrest information compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation from 1984 to 1989. Law enforcement agencies routinely report data on crime to the Uniform Crime Reporting Program. Other crime information was obtained from this source. / The empirical analysis suggests that one possible opportunity cost of increasing drug enforcement is a tradeoff between drug arrests and the deterrence of property crime. Another indirect cost of drug enforcement in the United States is a rising violent crime rate that occurs due to changes in the spatial distribution of drug markets. The variations in state asset forfeiture laws appear to explain some of the differences in cross-state drug enforcement policies. Results indicate that drug enforcement policy has been influenced in those states which allow police to keep a portion of confiscated assets as it exerts an important impact on the allocation of police resources. "Bureaucratic self interest" is thus supported as a cause of the war on drugs. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-10, Section: A, page: 4054. / Major Professor: David W. Rasmussen. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1995.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_77565 |
| Contributors | Bunnell, Sheena Singh., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 267 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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