Using Linked Administrative Data to Examine the Impact of the Seizure and Investigation of Illegal Drug Consignments on Local Communities Ben Matthews1 Chris Dibben1 Susan McVie1 Stuart Weatherley2 1 University of Edinburgh 2 National Crime Agency

Project Background Illegal Drug Consignments | Matthews et al. | 14/09/17

Project Background Illegal Drug Consignments | Matthews et al. | 14/09/17

Identified somewhere like this Royal Mail international hub, Heathrow (England), picture from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4014510/Inside-Santa-s-post-office-Photographs-reveal-astonishing-mountain-parcels-passing-Royal-Mail-s-worldwide-hub-ahead-Christmas.html Illegal Drug Consignments | Matthews et al. | 14/09/17

Project Background Distribution from cryptomarkets often relies on postal delivery (Mounteney et al. 2016:13) Cryptomarkets are intertwined with commercial and social supply chains (Barratt 2016, Aldridge and Décary-Hétu 2014) Illegal Drug Consignments | Matthews et al. | 14/09/17

Research Questions Are drug parcel seizures and controlled parcel deliveries associated with lower prevalence of recent drug use, medical admissions and deaths among the drug using population within local communities? Are drug parcel seizures and controlled parcel deliveries associated with a reduction in the numbers of crimes in local communities for drug offences, crimes of dishonesty and non-sexual crimes of violence? Illegal Drug Consignments | Matthews et al. | 14/09/17

Research Design: Data Linkage NCA Illegal Consignments Dataset: seizures and controlled deliveries Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation 2016 (SIMD): datazone characteristics Police Scotland: local area crime rates NHS Scotland: drugs-related hospital admissions and mortality, mortality amongst registered drug using population Data aggregated to datazone level, outcome as count per day Illegal Drug Consignments | Matthews et al. | 14/09/17

Research Design: Data Linkage NCA Illegal Consignments Dataset: seizures and controlled deliveries Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation 2016 (SIMD): datazone characteristics Police Scotland: local area crime rates NHS Scotland: drugs-related hospital admissions and mortality, mortality amongst registered drug using population Data aggregated to datazone level, outcome as count per day Illegal Drug Consignments | Matthews et al. | 14/09/17

Descriptive Results Illegal Drug Consignments | Matthews et al. | 14/09/17

NCA Dataset: Overview (1/2) Table One: Key properties of NCA Dataset N cases 1374 Period covered 2011-04-06 to 2016-01-05 N datazones 979 Consignments adopted 346 (0.25%) Consignments seized 1028 (0.75%) Commodities included Amphetamines, Benzodiazepines, Cannabinoids, Cathinones, Cocaine, GBL, Hallucinogens, Other, Ketamine, Khat, MDMA, Mephedrone, Methamphetamine, NPS, Opioids, Steroids, Suspected Cutting Agent (Note that packages containing Heroin, PCP and Methylphenidate are included as ‘other’ commodities in this report due to the small numbers of consignments identified containing these substances) Source: NCA consignments dataset. Illegal Drug Consignments | Matthews et al. | 14/09/17

NCA Dataset: Overview (2/2) Figure Two: Number of consignments identified of different commodities Illegal Drug Consignments | Matthews et al. | 14/09/17

Quantity of commodities Category four: Row N = 343 Category three, two or one: Row N = 44 Commodity not covered by guidelines: Row N = 830 Below sentencing threshold (density plots not shown): N = 157 Figure Two: Density plot of consignment size by commodity and tactic employed Illegal Drug Consignments | Matthews et al. | 14/09/17

Characteristics of places with consignments identified Figure Three: Average SIMD domains for datazones with no consignments, seized consignments only or at least one controlled delivery Illegal Drug Consignments | Matthews et al. | 14/09/17

Next steps and questions raised Further analysis of area characteristics Modelling: within and between datazone comparisons How large an effect on health outcomes and crime rates should we anticipate from these consignments? Illegal Drug Consignments | Matthews et al. | 14/09/17

Thank you References Aldridge, Judith, and David Décary-Hétu. 2014. ‘Not an “Ebay for Drugs”: The Cryptomarket “Silk Road” as a Paradigm Shifting Criminal Innovation’. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2436643. Barratt, Monica J. 2016. ‘Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Drug Cryptomarkets* (*but Were Afraid to Ask)’. International Journal of Drug Policy 35 (September):1–6. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2016.07.005. Mounteney, Jane, Alberto Oteo, and Paul Griffiths. 2016. ‘The Internet and Drug Markets: Shining a Light on These Complex and Dynamic Systems’. In European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction. Insights 21. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union.

Any questions? Contact ADRC-Scotland: @adrc_scotland Me: ben.matthews@ed.ac.uk @benmatthewsed

NCA Dataset: Temporal trends Table Two: Number of consignments per year Year Number of consignments 2011 91 2012 214 2013 349 2014 384 2015 336 Total 1374 Source: NCA consignments dataset. Figure One: Consignments adopted per year Illegal Drug Consignments | Matthews et al. | 14/09/17