Ecology of Crime in Seattle, WA: Drug Market Intervention Assessment

Making up about 5 percent of Seattle’s area, crime hotspots are responsible for more than 50 percent of the city’s crime. Left untouched, it’s theorized these concentrated areas can potentially break down norms and create larger disorder problems, making them important to address early. In 2008 and 2011, the Seattle Police Department addressed these issues using the Drug Market Initiative (DMI), a program attacking open-air drug markets and in turn reducing crime attached to these drug crimes. Using crime mapping and ArcGIS (ageograhic information system), crime concentrations are analyzed before and after implementation to further understand the spatial qualities of crime. The current paper offers a glance of the impact Seattle’s DMI has had on crime in the targeted neighborhood as well as surrounding blocks