Baltimore findings offer empirical evidence to counter claims that methadone and other outpatient clinics attract criminal element.
“Despite conventional wisdom that outpatient drug treatment centers such as methadone clinics bring violent crime into the neighborhoods where they sit, new Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health research suggests there may actually be less serious crime near clinics than other community businesses.
The researchers, publishing in the January issue of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, compared 2011 violent crime statistics near 53 publicly funded treatment centers in Baltimore and found that the areas around 53 comparable liquor stores and corner stores saw significantly more homicides, rapes, aggravated assaults and robberies per business than the areas around drug treatment centers.
The researchers say these findings strike a blow to the argument many use to keep new treatment centers from being opened in their neighborhoods, that the coming and going of drug addicts receiving daily methadone and other treatment brings with it a dangerous element.”
Read more at: http://www.newswise.com/articles/violent-crime-lower-near-drug-treatment-centers-than-other-commercial-areas
Source: Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health – January 27, 2016
