Longer-term impacts of trading restrictions on alcohol-related violence: insights from New South Wales, Australia.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: In February 2014, the government of New South Wales (NSW), Australia, introduced new restrictions (known as the 'lockout laws') on the sale of alcohol in licensed premises in two of Sydney's most prominent entertainment districts, Kings Cross (KX) and the central business district (CBD). This study aimed to determine: (i) whether the introduction of the lockout laws was the point at which the time pattern of the assault series in the KX and CBD entertainment precincts changed; (ii) whether the apparent reduction in assault in these precincts persists when we control for common variations in assault across the entire state of NSW; (iii) whether the reduction in assault in the KX and CBD entertainment precincts resulted in a displacement of the assault problem into other areas; and (iv) whether there is a net reduction in assault after taking any spill-over or displacement effects into account. DESIGN: Structural break analysis was used to determine the date at which the time pattern of assaults changed. Interrupted time series analysis with a rest-of-NSW comparator was used to assess the change in assault. SETTING, CASES AND MEASUREMENTS: The monthly totals of incidents of non-domestic assaults reported to the NSW Police between January 2009 and March 2019 (n = 123). FINDINGS: The structural break in assaults occurred in January 2014 rather than in February 2014, when the lockout laws were introduced. The reduction in assault persists even when we control for common influences across NSW as a whole. In particular, from January 2014 onwards, assaults fell immediately by 22% (a downward step) in KX (90% confidence interval [CI] = 15-28) and by 33% in the CBD (90% CI = 19-47). Assaults continued declining in KX (trend-break coefficient = -0.094, 90% CI = -0.192 to 0.005). The reduction in assault in the KX and CBD precincts is associated with a rise in assault in areas surrounding these precincts. The net effect, nonetheless, remains a lower level of assault. In particular, we estimate that the net reduction over the three areas combined was 1670 assaults (i.e. 27 per month). CONCLUSION: Some of the initial reduction in assault in KX and the CBD of Sydney, Australia, previously attributed to the February 2014 introduction of lockout laws may have been a response to publicity surrounding recent deaths connected with alcohol-related violence.

Income Inequality and White-on-Black Racial Bias in the United States: Evidence From Project Implicit and Google Trends.

Several theories predict that income inequality may produce increased racial bias, but robust tests of this hypothesis are lacking. We examined this relationship at the U.S. state level from 2004 to 2015 using Internal Revenue Service-based income-inequality statistics and two large-scale racial-bias data sources: Project Implicit ( N = 1,554,109) and Google Trends. Using a multimethod approach, we found evidence of a significant positive within-state association between income inequality and Whites' explicit racial bias. However, the effect was small, with income inequality accounting for 0.4% to 0.7% of within-state variation in racial bias, and was also contingent on model specification, with results dependent on the measure of income inequality used. We found no conclusive evidence linking income inequality to implicit racial bias or racially offensive Google searches. Overall, our findings admit multiple interpretations, but we discuss why statistically small effects of income inequality on explicit racial bias may nonetheless be socially meaningful.

Do drug seizures predict drug-related emergency department presentations or arrests for drug use and possession?

BACKGROUND: Direct evidence of the effect of drug seizures on drug use and drug-related harm is fairly sparse. The aim of this study was to see whether seizures of heroin, cocaine and ATS predict the number of people arrested for use and possession of these drugs and the number overdosing on them. METHOD: We examined the effect of seizure frequency and seizure weight on arrests for drug use and possession and on the frequency of drug overdose with autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) models. Granger causality tests were used to test for simultaneity. RESULTS: Over the short term (i.e. up to 4 months), increases in the intensity of high-level drug law enforcement (as measured by seizure weight and frequency) directed at ATS, cocaine and heroin did not appear to have any suppression effect on emergency department (ED) presentations relating to ATS, cocaine and heroin, or on arrests for use and/or possession of these drugs. A significant negative contemporaneous relationship was found between the heroin seizure weight and arrests for use and/or possession of heroin. However no evidence emerged of a contemporaneous or lagged relationship between heroin seizures and heroin ED presentations. CONCLUSION: The balance of evidence suggests that, in the Australian context, increases in the monthly seizure frequency and quantity of ATS, cocaine and heroin are signals of increased rather than reduced supply.