Study results show that cleaning homeless encampments does not reduce crime

When neighborhoods ask city and police officials to clean up homeless encampments, they often complain about crime — drug abuse, theft and assaults.

But a new study by health researchers at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora found that crime generally does not decrease after encampment clearances.

In a study published Wednesday in the Journal of Urban Health, researchers examined Denver police reports before and after 300 cleanups at Denver encampments from November 2019 to July 2023.

They examined crime reports from the seven, 14 and 21 days before and after city crews forcibly relocated people in the camps and disposed of tents, blankets, food and any other items left behind. Researchers divided the number into crimes reported within a quarter-mile, half-mile and three-quarters of a mile from the camp.

They found a “statistically significant but modest decrease” in crime of 9%, or about one fewer crime report, after the encampment clearance – but only within a quarter mile or about two blocks and within seven days. Three weeks after the raid, the crime rate was 3.9% lower than before the raid. The rate remained unchanged on average when considering a half- or three-quarter mile radius.

The number of crimes reported weekly within a quarter mile of a camp was around 10-15. The crimes that tended to decline in the first few days and within the camp’s “hyperlocal” quarter mile were public disturbances and car theft, although the study examined 265,000 crime reports on everything from public urination to murder.

Sexual assault cases were not included in the study because police reports do not reveal the location to protect the identity of the victims.

The study follows a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June that made it easier for communities to search storage facilities. The opinion, entitled “City of Grants Pass v. Johnson” allows cities or counties to fine, ticket or arrest people for living outdoors, even if there aren’t enough shelters. The case arose in 2018 in Grants Pass, Oregon, when the city was sued for issuing tickets to people sleeping in public.

The study’s author, Pranav Padmanabhan, a doctoral student in public health at CU’s medical school, said he began looking into crime after Denver encampments were raided in 2023, during local governments and homeless people -Advocacy groups awaited the Supreme Court’s decision.

The crime study also follows previous research, some of which involved CU, which found that cleanup operations in camps have a negative impact on the health of those living there and are linked to shorter life expectancy and increased overdoses. People whose tents are removed by officials often lose their medications, health insurance cards, hearing aids, glasses and other items, Dr. Joshua Barocas, lead researcher on the study, a professor at CU School of Medicine and an infectious disease physician at Denver Health.

When Barocas worked in Boston years ago, he saw city workers unloading truckloads of wheelchairs, crutches and canes after cleaning up the warehouse, he said. Patients still report losing medications and sterile needles, leading them to reuse needles for intravenous drug use.

The latest study adds to a host of others that show cleaning up camps is not good for the people living there, he said.

“It was really about assessing the popular narrative that homelessness is linked to crime and that if we eliminate homelessness, maybe crime will go away,” Barocas said.

Barocas said he is drawn to addressing social justice issues such as homelessness, drug use and racism because these issues affect his hospital patients. He wants research, not “stigmatization or anecdotes,” to drive public policy.

“Look, if the data came out that searches were good for crime and searches were good for people experiencing homelessness, then I would advocate for it,” he said. “It’s just that the evidence doesn’t point in that direction. Our community will not be better off if we displace people. It may look better, but it doesn’t make us safer or improve public health.”

The study did not include information on whether people who reported the crimes were housed or not housed, or whether the alleged perpetrators were housed or not housed. Other studies have shown that people who are homeless are more likely to be victims of crime than people who are not homeless, and that people who are homeless are more likely to be victims of crime than perpetrators.

“Previous work has shown that forcing unhoused people to move without access to services is harmful to health,” Padmanabhan said. “Unless we get to the root causes of homelessness, these methods actually don’t make us any safer.”

A Colorado Sun analysis of Denver police data in 2022 found that crime reports fell in neighborhoods where city-sponsored Safe Outdoor Space sites operated, even as reported crime increased across Denver.

The city’s overall crime rose 14.3% in 2021, the first full year of the city’s Safe Outdoor Space program, which allocated red tents to people sleeping rough. But in the six Denver neighborhoods where the encampments took place, the number of reported crimes fell by 2.8%.

Story Type: News

Based on facts either directly observed and verified by the reporter or reported and verified by knowledgeable sources.