Property crime and drug enforcement in Portugal

Abstract

The author tests the effect of drug law enforcement on the property crime rate in Portugal, investigating the hypothesis that there exists a property crime and drug crime trade-off. The test is an approximate replication of the Sollars, Benson, and Rasmussen (1994) model using data from 274 Portuguese municipalities in 1996, adjusted for societal differences. Increasing concern over the rise of the drug problem in this country and its seemingly unsuccessful effect on crime has led policy makers to doubt further allocation of scarce resources toward a strict drug policy. Evidence is found that supports the trade-off hypothesis; that is, in Portugal there is a trade-off between efforts to control drug crimes and efforts to control property crimes.