Essays on policies to reduce crime and harm adolescent curfews, street cleaning and fentanyl test strips Wilson Hernandez

Format:

Book

Thesis/Dissertation

Author/Creator:

Hernandez, Wilson, author.

Contributor:

University of Pennsylvania. Criminology., degree granting institution.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Criminology.

Public health.

Law enforcement.

Public administration.

0627.

0206.

0573.

0617.

Local Subjects:

Criminology.

Public health.

Law enforcement.

Public administration.

0627.

0206.

0573.

0617.

Genre:

Academic theses

Physical Description:

1 online resource (176 pages)

Contained In:

Dissertations Abstracts International 87-12B

Place of Publication:

Ann Arbor : ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, 2026

Language Note:

English

Summary:

An important share of policy options focuses on traditional police enforcement (e.g., more policing, more arrests and stops, et cetera) and the criminal justice system (e.g., incarceration, sanctions, et cetera) to reduce crime and harm. This dissertation looks beyond and opts to examine the impact of alternative policies acting on restrictions to adolescents' mobility (adolescent curfews), an at-scale place-based intervention (street cleaning), and a harm reduction strategy to mitigate overdose deaths (Fentanyl Test Strips). The first chapter assesses the effect of adolescent curfews on crime, a common policy implemented across cities aimed at reducing youth exposure to victimization and youth offending. By exploiting hourly data on crime incidents, the results indicate that, contrary to the policy's expectation, adolescent curfews increase youth victimization for theft, larceny, and robbery, and have no detectable effect on youth offending. Because youth represent less than one percent of crime victims or offenders, policies targeting other issues or populations may yield greater benefits for crime reduction. The second chapter examines whether an at-scale place-based intervention, specifically street cleaning, reduces crime. The intervention, which took place in Philadelphia, reduced 311 requests related to trash and street problems, as well as gun violence, violent offenses, and quality-of-life crimes. Summer-fall and day-night comparisons show heterogeneous effects and some evidence of temporal crime displacement. Overall, the effects are larger than interventions focused on micro-geographies (e.g., vacant lots or abandoned properties). Because street cleaning is a routine service among local governments, the intervention is scalable, though the costs of its continuous implementation must be considered. The third chapter focuses on one of the most prominent harm reduction strategies, Fentanyl Test Strips, and analyzes the impact of their legalization on overdose deaths. Given that illicitly manufactured fentanyl is commonly present in street drugs and counterfeit prescription pills, the strips can inform about the presence of this synthetic opioid before consumption. The legalization of Fentanyl Test Strips reduced overdose deaths involving heroin and fentanyl, driven by a reduction in past-year heroin use. However, the strips increased overdose deaths in which fentanyl was combined with cocaine or methamphetamine, likely because the strips replaced the interest in opioid reversal medication, the other main harm reduction strategy. Together, the evaluation of these interventions provides helpful evidence to weigh the opportunities and risks of implementing them to reduce crime and harm, highlighting the complex mechanisms behind their effects, some of which are studied in this dissertation and others relevant for future studies

Notes:

Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 87-12, Section: B.

Advisors: Chalfin, Aaron J. Committee members: MacDonald, John M.; Braga, Anthony

Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania 2026

Vendor supplied data

Local Notes:

School code: 0175

ISBN:

9798247973089

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license