Program Profile: Kansas City (MO) Police Department Street Narcotics Unit

This was a special police unit that conducted raids of crack houses to reduce crack-related crime and improve public order in Kansas City, Mo. The program is rated No Effects. There were no statistically significant differences between the experimental and control groups in calls for service (including calls for violent, property, and disorder offenses) and reported offenses (including violent and property offenses).

A No Effects rating implies that implementing the program is unlikely to result in the intended outcome(s) and may result in a negative outcome(s).

This program's rating is based on evidence that includes at least one high-quality randomized controlled trial.

Program Goals

The rise of the crack epidemic in the late 1980s led to substantial increases in crack-related crime in U.S. cities, placing a large burden on law enforcement. It was reported that street blocks where drugs were sold had levels of crime and violence that were three to four times greater than other street blocks. This prompted many urban police departments to use intensive strategies to combat crack-related crime, one of which was raids of crack houses.

In Kansas City, MO, drug-related arrests more than tripled from 1,110 in 1988 to 3,806 in 1989. From 1988 to 1989, there was also an increase in the perception among citizens that crack houses were spreading in Kansas City (Sherman and Rogan 1995). Pressure was placed on the Kansas City Police Department to address the problem and as a result, the department implemented the Street Narcotics Unit in 1989. The unit was employed specifically to raid crack houses on blocks with high levels of disorder and crime. The stated purpose of the unit was not to lock up drug users or even to substantially disrupt the drug market, but rather to improve public order by reducing crack-related crime in neighborhoods. The goal was also to provide short-term deterrence in blocks with high levels of disorder.

Target Sites

As crack houses are not legitimate establishments that all look the same or remain located in a single dwelling, it was difficult to identify which sites were truly crack houses. Activity around a dwelling may be interpreted in different ways: citizens may perceive that an abandoned house with people loitering around it was a crack house, but this was not necessarily the case, just as some crack houses may have been located in nice-looking houses and therefore did not arouse any suspicion. Crack houses on blocks with high levels of crime and disorder were therefore selected using a combination of citizen complaints to a hotline, reports of crime in the area, and police identification of sites.

Program Components

An undercover police officer or confidential informant (under the supervision of an undercover officer) would enter a suspected crack house and attempted to buy crack using marked bills. If the buy was successful, the drugs were impounded, and a search warrant was issued for the site. The warrant could then be issued within the subsequent 10 days.

To ensure that the correct house was raided, the undercover officer who participated in the buy drove by with the tactical sergeant to confirm the location of the house before the warrant was executed. In some instances, a second undercover buy was conducted at the house.

To serve the warrant, a team of seven uniformed officers stormed the crack house using a great deal of force. They pulled up in a van outside the house, and several officers quickly broke down the door using a small metal battering ram. During this time, several other officers went to all exits of the house to ensure that no one fled the house during the raid. Officers ordered all inhabitants to lie down on the floor, and they were all handcuffed.

Once all inhabitants were handcuffed, an extensive search of the house for drugs and weapons was executed. This search sometimes took several hours, and potential customers often came by in an attempt to procure drugs. After the search was completed and all drugs were seized, arrests were made and inhabitants were taken to the police station for questioning. They were also checked for outstanding warrants.

These raids were purposely made highly visible to people in the surrounding areas, with the intent of producing a short-term deterrent effect.

Key Personnel

The Street Narcotics Unit was composed of about 20 to 40 officers of the Kansas City Police Department, including one captain and at least one sergeant.

Program Theory

The routine activities theory of crime proposes that crimes occur as a result of available opportunities. Crack houses provide many opportunities for a variety of troublesome behavior, including prostitution, loitering, drug disputes, romantic quarrels, and loud noise. These activities can occur in and around the crack house, creating disorder and crime in the immediate surrounding area. The idea behind the police crack house raids was to improve public order in blocks where crack houses were located; thus, the Street Narcotics Unit did not focus on the adverse effects of crack itself or crack drug sales, but rather on the detrimental microenvironmental impact that crack houses have on surrounding areas (Sherman and Rogan 1995).

The high visibility of police crack house raids was additionally designed to produce a deterrent effect on block-level crime and disorder. The idea was to increase the audience’s uncertainty about future police activity and to produce at least a short-term deterrent effect.

Study 1

Sherman and Rogan (1995) conducted a randomized controlled trial of the Kansas City (Mo.) Police Department Street Narcotics Unit from November 1991 to May 1992. Two outcome measures were used: calls for service made by citizens and offense reports recorded by police. Calls for service were used to measure levels of public order in a block area, and offense reports were used to measure levels of serious crime in block areas. While there was some overlap in the two measures, they were analyzed separately, because not all calls for service led to offense reports, and not all offense reports were initiated by a call for service. Some offense reports were generated from calls for service, while others were generated from police-initiated contact.

Data were obtained from the Kansas City Police Department, and random assignment was done with the assistance of a research site manager. The sample was chosen from a pipeline of 1,421 attempted buys made by undercover officers. The final sample consisted of 207 cases total, with 103 in the control group receiving no raids and 104 in the experimental group selected to receive raids. Only 98 out of the 104 in the experimental group actually received raids; one actually received two raids and was excluded from the experiment.

To be eligible for inclusion in raids, sites were required to have had at least five calls for service in the 30 days prior to the undercover buy. Sites were also restricted to include only the inside of residences, including single-family homes (68 percent of the sample), multifamily houses (4 percent), and apartments (28 percent). The goal was to select residences that would be fully eligible for a search warrant, as determined by a Special Narcotics Unit officer.

Negative binomial regression was used to examine differences in calls for service and reported offenses between the experimental and control groups. The study authors looked at the overall number of calls for service and calls for violent, property, and disorder offenses. They also looked at the number of all reported offenses and violent and property offenses. Since prior research has found that disorder problems are least likely to generate offense reports (Black 1980), leaving too small a base rate for meaningful comparison with the call data, the study authors excluded this outcome category from reported offenses. No subgroup analysis was conducted.

Officers on the Kansas City (Mo.) Police Department Street Narcotics Unit had to be in top physical condition and trained to use special raid tactics and weapons (Sherman and Rogan 1995).

Re-review

In 2011, the Kansas City (Mo.) Police Department Street Narcotics Unit received a final program rating of Promising based on a review of the study by Sherman and Rogan (1995). In December 2020, CrimeSolutions conducted a re-review of the same study using the updated CrimeSolutions Program Scoring Instrument. This re-review resulted in a new final program rating of No Effects.

These sources were used in the development of the program profile:

These sources were used in the development of the program profile:

Following are CrimeSolutions-rated programs that are related to this practice:

Hot Spots Policing

Hot spots policing strategies focus on small geographic areas or places, usually in urban settings, where crime is concentrated. Through hot spots policing strategies, law enforcement agencies can focus limited resources in areas where crime is most likely to occur. This practice is rated Effective for reducing overall crime and rated Promising for reducing violent, property, public order, and drug and alcohol offenses.

Evidence Ratings for Outcomes

	Crime & Delinquency - Multiple crime/offense types
	Crime & Delinquency - Violent offenses
	Crime & Delinquency - Property offenses
	Crime & Delinquency - Public order offenses
	Crime & Delinquency - Drug and alcohol offenses

Street-Level Drug Law Enforcement

This practice includes targeted-policing approaches for reducing drug and drug-related offenses. This practice is rated Promising in reducing reported, drug-related calls for services and offenses against persons. This practice is rated No Effects in reducing reported property offenses, public order calls for service, and total offenses.

Evidence Ratings for Outcomes

	Crime & Delinquency - Drug and alcohol offenses
	Crime & Delinquency - Violent offenses
	Crime & Delinquency - Property offenses
	Crime & Delinquency - Public order offenses
	Crime & Delinquency - Multiple crime/offense types

Why might a practice's outcome ratings differ from the ratings of specific programs encompassed by that practice?