Researchers from Portland State University’s Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice released their final report examining the impacts of years of major drug policy changes between 2008 and 2024 on crime and drug-related deaths. The report, created in partnership with the National Institute of Justice, finds little evidence to support claims that Oregon’s drug decriminalization policy caused higher crime and overdose deaths.
It’s not mentioned here, but this somewhat contradicts this study published two weeks ago. The differences here are these: PSU’s is a systems/implementation study (what changed inside policing, charging, courts, services) that’s cautious on early causal claims. The CrimRxiv study, referenced in The Wall Street Journal article “This is the Pacific Northwest on Drugs,” is a statistical outcome study that leans into causal identification and reports sizable short-run increases.
Take the two studies together: There is emerging quantitative evidence of post-policy crime upticks in Oregon and Washington, concentrated in the largest metros; however, confounding contemporaneous factors and subsequent legal changes mean we should expect estimates to evolve with longer panels and peer review. In other words, Oregon and Washington, particularly in Portland and Seattle, likely spiked crime by decriminalizing hard drugs, but there are lots of other factors at play making it hard to say so definitively yet.