Do clean syringe exchange programs increase crime?
Scientific studies have concluded that clean syringe programs do not increase crime in the neighborhoods where they are located. Trends in arrests were compared in clean syringe exchange areas and equivalent areas without such programs before and after a clean syringe exchange program was introduced in Baltimore. No significant differences in arrest trends were seen in any of the arrest categories. Do clean syringe exchange programs attract injection drug users into a neighborhood? Monitored impact of current programs indicates no. In Baltimore, 85 percent of the participants attending a clean syringe exchange program lived in the same zip code as the location where they visited the mobile clean syringe exchange program. In Los Angeles, staff at one of the exchange sites told task force members that 75 percent of their participants lived in the same neighborhood. Crime was not increased in the vicinity of the mobile programs, and in a carefully controlled scientific study it was shown
