The High Point drug market initiative

The High Point Police Department in High Point, North Carolina has gained attention from the U.S. Department of Justice and police departments, prosecutors, and local governmental officials through a strategic problem solving intervention that has come to be known as the High Point Drug Market Intervention Program (DMI).

The DMI seeks to focus on geographically-defined drug market locations and eliminate the overt drug market and the associated violence. The model includes a highly focused deterrence strategy coupled with police-community partnerships that seek to offer sources of social support to the subjects of the deterrence strategy while at the same time re-establishing informal social controls within the neighborhood in order to prevent the re-emergence of the drug market.

HPPD has reported very significant declines in crime in the neighborhoods where the DMI has been implemented and an NIJ-supported study indicates strong support for the intervention among justice system officials and local residents. The purpose of this report is to test the impact of the intervention in the original DMI neighborhood through a rigorous outcome assessment.