1046985

research-article2021
CJPXXX10.1177/08874034211046985Criminal Justice Policy Review XX(X)Bogliaccini et al.

Article
Criminal Justice Policy Review

Tackling Drug-Lords in a
1­–22
© The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/08874034211046985
https://doi.org/10.1177/08874034211046985
Drug Crime in Uruguay journals.sagepub.com/home/cjp

Juan A. Bogliaccini1 , Diego Pereira1,

Juan Ignacio Pereira2, Cecilia Giambruno3,
and Ignacio Borba1

Abstract
This article analyzes the effects of police raids for different types of crime in the
most conflictive neighborhoods of Montevideo, Uruguay. Interrupted time-series and
intervention models are estimated using different specifications of geographical area
where the crackdowns occurred and also different control strategies to produce
robust results. The effect of crackdowns on crime reporting is mixed; evidence
suggesting crackdowns may produce short- and long-term effects on crime depending
on their ability to affect gangs’ competition for the territory and the market. It
appears that the effects of raids are sensitive to the context of the criminal situation.
Crackdowns are not consistently effective in influencing crime. Evidence shows it
is hard to reach levels of critical enforcement through 1-day crackdowns and that
crackdowns’ ability to alter drug-market conditions would depend not only on the
ability to extract drug dealers from the territory but also in preventing a rapid return.

Keywords
crime, crackdown, Uruguay, drug, police

Introduction
On August 1, 2019, Hamburg port authorities found 4.5 tons of cocaine hidden in a
shipment of soybeans coming from the port of Montevideo. The news was shocking

1
Universidad Católica del Uruguay, Montevideo, Uruguay
2
Brown University, Providence, RI, USA
3
Inter American Development Bank, Montevideo

Corresponding Author:
Juan A. Bogliaccini, Universidad Católica del Uruguay, Av. 8 de Octubre 2738, Montevideo 11600,
Uruguay.
Email: juan.bogliaccini@ucu.edu.uy
2 Criminal Justice Policy Review 00(0)

on the two sides of the Atlantic. This cocaine seizure set a record for Hamburg port
authorities in terms of the amount of drug, even in the context of a steep upward trend
in which 2017 seizures around Europe increased to 140.4 tons from a previous 70.9
tons in 2016.1 This seizure accounted for the biggest drug shipment ever recorded in
Montevideo. The long-lasting war on drugs in the north of Latin America has had the
consequence of moving drug routes for Europe and the rest of the world to the south.
In this context, Uruguay has seen a steep increase in drug-related crimes and a con-
tinuous growth of drug dealing operations, which has proven to be particularly perva-
sive to poor slums at the outskirts of the city of Montevideo. The city is going through
one of the worst periods of violence and crime in recent decades. In 2018, homicide
and robbery figures were the highest on record. These figures also show worrisome
signs of spatial inequality. While the country average homicide rate for 2018 is 11.8
per 100,000 inhabitants—similar to Costa Rica or the Dominican Republic—
Montevideo’s homicide rate of 16.1 is closer to figures of the Democratic Republic of
Congo or Lesotho.2
In Montevideo, violence and crime incidence rates change dramatically between
neighborhoods that are just a few kilometers away.3 Violence is concentrated in the
most disadvantaged social contexts, exacerbating living conditions and generating a
vicious cycle of violence and marginality that conspires against any attempt at social
development or even social order (see Averdijk et al., 2016; Jacottet, 2018). A 30% of
all homicides committed in Uruguay in 2018 were concentrated in four neighborhoods
in Montevideo, home to 9% of the country’s total population. Most of these homicides
occur in a few poor neighborhoods in the north area of the city, among which the
neighborhood of Casavalle ranks at the top, with a homicide rate that exceeds 70
homicides per 100,000 inhabitants.
The relation between local distributors and international smugglers, as between
distributors and crime, has been widely documented (see Reuter, 1986, for a classic
study). The drug market in Montevideo began a worrisome trend during the 1990s
with the arrival of coca paste, which rapidly penetrated all social sectors. With it, a
dealer market began an expansive stage due to increased consumption. However, with
the economic effects of the commodity boom, coca paste began to be replaced in the
upper social strata, which shrunk the market and increased violence between drug
dealers due to market competition.
The governmental response to this steep increase in crimes has been varied both in
terms of the level of geographical focus and the diversity of approaches, following
common international practices. Three strategies are worth mentioning. First, the gov-
ernment implemented a strategy of Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design
(CPTED) beginning in 2012, which involves a high geographical focus and wide array
of approaches. For example, surveillance cameras were installed at different points in
Montevideo, but mostly with a focus on the city downtown, characterized by frenetic
business activity during office hours but lonely otherwise and with hot spots of mid-
dle- and lower-middle-class residential areas.4 By 2017, the government claimed
(although no evaluation has been made public) this system had reduced thefts by 80%
and robberies by 73%.5 Second, in the same vein, the government initiated a Program
Bogliaccini et al. 3

of High Operative Dedication (PADO, by its Spanish acronym), which consists of

focused police patrolling in different neighborhoods.
Third, the policy we focus on in this article is that the government began another
strategy of hot-spot policing in 2017: localized raids. These were conducted in areas
with particularly high levels of drug-related crime and violence as well as a presence
of organized micro-drug-trafficking gangs. This strategy is combined with PADO
afterward in the most complex neighborhoods.
This article uses an interrupted time-series design to evaluate the effects of such
raids on crime over time. We aim to learn about the effects of crackdowns on robberies
and violent crimes (threats, damage, injuries, and homicides), the two types of crime
both the literature and local police authorities relate to the drug-trafficking problem.
We also consider the special case of Casavalle, unique in that rival gangs are known to
be battling for the territory, crime is especially high, and eight major raids have been
conducted in this neighborhood. We use the method of intervention analysis for mod-
eling the effect of raids on crime in Casavalle.

Theory and Cases

Specialized literature on the effect of hot-spot drug policing can be divided into two
broad groups: the literature modeling the theoretical relation between crackdowns and
crime, and the literature based on case studies, whatever identification strategy is used.
To understand the effect of crackdowns on crime, it is important to understand their
effects on drug dealing because the literature repeatedly suggests that the trafficking of
illicit drugs plays an important role in the generation of crimes, especially violent
crimes with firearms (Goldstein et al., 1989; Levitt & Venkatesh, 2000; Ousey & Lee,
2004).
Caulkins (1993) developed a model to understand the effect of market size on drug
dealing, and therefore on the amount of effort needed to collapse a market (see Baveja
et al., 1993; Kleiman, 1988). Baveja et al. (1997) modeled this in terms of time and
number of dealers. Baveja et al. (2000) found, in modeling crackdown strategies with
limited resources, that crackdowns normally lead to significant results within a matter
of a week. The authors also proposed that, if crackdowns are not successful by that
time, prospects for success decay greatly afterward. Sherman (1990), however, argued
for the potential benefit of repeated short-term crackdowns in analyzing their effect on
crime. This is particularly important because it seems to be the modus operandi for the
intervention in one of Montevideo’s neighborhoods, Casavalle, where there are con-
tentious relations between gangs.
A second important question is about the type of market the police are confronting
(Baveja et al., 1997; Caulkins, 1992). Real drug markets fall between two poles: a
seller’s market where demand for illicit drugs is abundant and a buyer’s market where
demand is reduced, and dealers fight for market share. The latter is mostly the situation
in north Montevideo, and particularly Casavalle, after the shrinkage of the coca paste
first, then the legalization of marijuana in 2013.
4 Criminal Justice Policy Review 00(0)

Another question references whether or not a crackdown produces lasting results.

Caulkins’s (1993, see Equation 9) model suggests the ability of dealers to jump-start a
market depends on their ability to coordinate. Narco-gangs can provide this level of
coordination, even when not securing for themselves big shares of drug dealing on the
market. To this respect, the literature agrees that maintaining good police–community
relations is key for residents being more likely to report promptly a resurgence in drug
dealing (Caulkins, 1993; Maher & Dixon, 2018). In general, long-term crackdown
effects are dependent, on a theoretical level, on provisions taken to prevent a market
from returning (Baveja et al., 1993).
From the set of studies with a clear-cut causal identification mechanism, evidence
is mostly from different cities and towns of the United States. Across extensive schol-
arship on hot-spot policing, in particular focalized raids, evidence is mixed about the
existence of long-term effects, short-term effects, or non-effects of crackdowns on
crime (see Braga & Bond, 2008; Caulkins et al., 1993; Cohen et al., 2003; Kim et al.,
2019; Lawton et al., 2005; Mazerolle et al., 2006; Moeller & Hesse, 2013; Novak
et al., 1999; Nunn et al., 2006; Phillips et al., 2016; Shepard & Blackley, 2005;
Sherman & Weisburd, 1995; Smith, 2001; Werb et al., 2011; among others).
Among those studies identifying at least short-term or even long-term effects of
crackdowns, evidence is mixed about possible displacement effects of crackdowns
on crime, increases of violence in the short term as a consequence of crackdowns,
or even (on the positive side) diffusion or at least deterrence effects. Among the
main issues identified by these studies as potential intervening factors in moderat-
ing or even washing out the desired effect of a crackdown are the other risk factors
present in the area, such as organized gangs, the inability of the police to sustain
the intervention over a level of critical enforcement, or even the inability to mod-
ify market conditions to decrease the probability of the market’s returning after the
crackdown. The success of a crackdown maybe even related to how the detainees
navigate the judicial system. In other words, crackdowns by themselves, like
almost every other policing strategy, are unlikely to reduce crime when isolated
from other coordinated interventions, particularly in complex environments (see
Mazerolle et al., 2006).
There is also a growing stream of literature on Latin America, with a strong focus
on Mexico and Central America, analyzing the problem of drug-related crime and
policing strategies (see Cruz, 2010). Several scholars addressed issues of police
militarization and open confrontation in contexts of weak state capacity and control
over the territory (see Calderón et al., 2015; Duran-Martínez, 2018; Flores-Macías,
2018). Initial evidence from these works suggests police militarization augments
violence levels, particularly kidnapping and homicides. We should note that the size
and structure of gangs in Uruguay are not comparable with their Central American
correlates. Furthermore, the raids we investigate are not designed as an instrument
of open war on drugs as has been seen in other countries. Nevertheless, the evidence
from Mexico and Central America is telling for short-term expected effects of direct
intervention.
Bogliaccini et al. 5

Based on the extant knowledge of the effects of crackdowns on crime, our goal is
to learn about post-crackdown effects in Montevideo’s most conflicted neighborhoods
for violent crimes and robberies. Our hypotheses are the following:

Hypothesis 1: We expect the analyzed crackdowns to be associated with a short-

term change in levels of crime.
Hypothesis 2: We expect the effect of crackdowns to be higher for violent crimes
(threats, damage, injuries, and homicides) than for robberies.

Our expectations about the effects of crackdowns in Montevideo on crime reporting

are based on the comparison between evidence-based theory and the particular charac-
teristics of these operations in the territory.
The analysis assumes that levels of reported crime follow the same trends as levels
of actual criminal activity. However, we have to acknowledge that it is also possible
for crackdowns to have effects on citizens’ willingness to report, which would add
measurement error that would be a confounder to our causal claim. This potential
problem, of course, affects all studies that examined aggregate crime statistics in
response to some intervention (e.g., a gun control law’s effect on armed robberies in
Boston, as studied by Berk et al., 1981; Deutsch & Alt, 1977). Unfortunately, we can-
not differentiate the treatment’s effect on willingness to report from its effect on the
actual level of criminal activity. Nevertheless, we do expect that any effect on the
willingness to report to be short term; therefore, we assume any long-term trend could
safely be attributed to actual levels of crime.
We analyze raids done by the Montevideo police between January 2017 and April
2019 as part of a renewed hot-spot policing strategy adopted in response to a sharp
increase in crime and particular drug-related crime. The analyzed crackdowns were
carried out in close coordination with other state agencies: Energy Company (UTE),
Telecommunications Company (ANTEL), Montevideo city government, Ministry of
Housing and Territorial Ordering (MVOTMA), and other state agencies. The main
declared goal of these operations was the re-establishment of law and order by a rein-
vigoration of the state presence in areas where micro-trafficking gangs had gained
power and territorial control, advancing a culture of illegality. The government under-
stands the importance of avoiding violence escalation by entering an open drug war as
well as the long-term character of the policing strategy oriented to curve down the
drug market as well as crime. However, by 2017, some of the gangs began to expel
people from their homes through threats and extortion, improving the control of the
territory. The police also perceived an increase in the use of dissuasion mechanisms to
prevent public services to enter various areas of the neighborhoods, denying access to
ambulances and public transportation.6 This was seen by the government as a qualita-
tive change in the extant equilibrium of forces with the gangs, which triggered a
response based on the combination of crackdowns and PADO policing right afterward,
with some small urban interventions such as street openings, house demolitions, and
improved street illumination. Figure 1 shows the trend in terms of total crime in
6 Criminal Justice Policy Review 00(0)

Figure 1. Number of crimes by week, Montevideo.

Source. Elaborated with data provided by the Ministry of the Interior.

Montevideo, whereas Figure 2 illustrates the differential prevalence of crimes by

neighborhood in Montevideo, as well as the areas where the crackdowns took place.
As these highly coordinated raids were an innovation in terms of policing strategy
in Montevideo, there was no previous experience of this type of hot-spot policing in
the government or the police. Most raids lasted by only 1 day, not being repeated after-
ward, at least in the short term. There are two exceptions to this pattern: In Cerro
Norte, the police made two interventions in a week, during Weeks 172 and 173. In
Casavalle, as already explained, eight raids occurred between Weeks 156 and 221.
Table 1 shows the crackdowns in order of occurrence, detailing the number of police
officers directly involved (if known), the number of days each operation lasted, the
number of detainees, the number of properties entered, and finally a dummy variable
for when drug seizures occurred.
As shown in Table 1, most crackdowns were effective in seizing drugs. The average
number of search warrants per crackdown is 32 properties, and the average number of
detainees is 16 people per crackdown. For those cases where the number of police
officers was reported on official documents, the average is 442 per raid.

Research Design and Causal Identification

Data
Crime and crackdown information was provided by the Center for Criminal Data
(UAC—Unidad de Análisis Criminal) and the Montevideo Police Department, both
under the authorization of the Ministry of the Interior (MI). Because the temporal unit
of analysis is the weekly count of events, each variable is presented as the number of
Bogliaccini et al. 7

Figure 2. Total crimes by neighborhood and areas with raids.

Source. Elaborated with data provided by the Ministry of the Interior.
Note. January 2015–March 2019, Montevideo. The areas with black borders correspond to the census
segments where raids took place.

incidents per week. The time frame for the study includes 156 weeks before the first
raid and between 20 and 65 weeks after each raid occurred, resulting in a total of 221
week-observations.7

Dependent Variables and Synthetic Control

The dependent variables are the logarithms of (a) reports on robberies and (b) violent
crimes (sum of threats, damage, injuries, and homicides) per 1,000 people. Each model
(see Equation 2 in the “Statistical Methods” section) uses one of these dependent vari-
ables. For each crackdown (except for Casavalle), we model the two outcomes at two
levels and with two strategies for comparison. The first level of comparison is the
neighborhood, while the second level of comparison is the exact area in which the raid
was performed, built from census segments (block groups). We use the two strategies
as we recognize using the neighborhood as the unit of analysis allows for a potential
misrepresentation of the substantive geographical area in real terms. For simplicity,
however, we focus on the neighborhood-level analysis in this article, with the seg-
ment-level analysis in the appendix.8 For Casavalle, we only model at the neighbor-
hood level because multiple places inside the neighborhood have been intervened in
continuously.
8 Criminal Justice Policy Review 00(0)

Table 1. Montevideo Crackdowns.

Police Raids Drug
Neighborhood Date officers Days Detainees (houses) seizures

Casavalle December 20, 2017 600 1 (first one) 35 64 1

Cerro Norte April 10, 2018 — 2 (within a week) 26 88 2
Malvín Norte June 13, 2018 376 1 13 29 1
Jardines del October 4, 2018 — 1 8 12 1
Hipódromo
Villa Española October 16, 2018 350 1 16 54 1
Peñarol November 15, 2018 — 1 16 18 0
Tres Ombués December 8, 2018 — 1 16 27 1

Source. Elaborated with data provided by the Ministry of the Interior and Official website of Ministry of the Interior.

For each analyzed crackdown, we built a synthetic control neighborhood following

Abadie et al.’s (2010) proposed methodology, as shown in Equation 1. As explained by
Abadie et al. (2010), a synthetic control is a weighted combination of control neigh-
borhoods chosen to approximate the treated neighborhood in terms of the crime out-
come predictors.
k

∑v ( X1m − X 0mW )
2
m , (1)
m =1

where following Linden (2018), X1m is the value of the mth preintervention covariate
for the treated neighborhood and X0m is a 1 × J vector containing the values of the mth
preintervention covariates for the non-treated neighborhoods in the sample. The neigh-
borhood donor pool is composed of each neighborhood that did not has had an inter-
vention by the time the treated neighborhood receives the intervention. Next, vm is a
weight that reflects the relative importance that is assigned to the mth preintervention
covariate. When measuring the discrepancy between X1 and X0W for each of the three
predictors of crime that we use (prevalence of poverty, percentage of young males
aged between 15 and 29 years old, and average years of education), we want the pre-
dictors with large predictive power on crime for the treated neighborhood to be
assigned large vm weights. All predictors are drawn from Household Survey data for
years 2015 to 2017 (Instituto Nacional de Estadística [INE], n.d.). For a seminal exam-
ple of the analysis of the relation between drug selling and poverty, see Reuter et al.
(1990).
In constructing each control, we modeled the dependent variable for every week
between Week 1 and the week before the intervention. We only included neighbor-
hoods without a crackdown to participate in the analysis. Therefore, the evolution of
the outcome for the resulting control group is an estimate of the counterfactual of what
would have been observed for the affected unit in the absence of a crackdown. The
combination of interrupted time series and synthetic controls helps improve causal
inference in policy evaluation (Linden, 2018).
Bogliaccini et al. 9

Figure 3. Montevideo weekly assault report and crackdowns (vertical line), by

neighborhood.

Descriptive Statistics
Figure 3 shows time-series line graphs of the changes in the levels of crime reports for
our cases from January 2015 to March 2019. Each vertical black line represents an
intervention week in a certain place.
Examining Figure 3, a few facts become apparent. First, the sharp increase in crime
reporting shown in Figure 1 does not represent a homogeneous change in the level of
crime reporting in the treated problematic cases. Rather, we see different patterns
across them. The first crackdown occurs immediately after the sharp increase shown
in Figure 1 (during Week 154), at Week 156 in Casavalle. Second, the vertical lines in
Figure 3 represent the crackdowns. The neighborhood standing out by being treated on
several occasions is Casavalle, the most problematic in terms of organized drug gangs
where two of them—the Chingas and the Camala—are engaged in a continuous fight
over the territory.

Statistical Methods
The study is based on interrupted time-series analyses to examine whether police
crackdowns reduce crime reporting. There is a two-step procedure: determining an
Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) model to evaluate stationarity
10 Criminal Justice Policy Review 00(0)

Table 2. Augmented Dickey–Fuller Test for Unit Root.

Assaults Violent crimes

Test MacKinnon Test MacKinnon

statistic approximate statistic approximate
Neighborhood Observations (three lags) p value for Z(t) (three lags) p value for Z(t)
Cerro Norte 216 −4.726 .0006 −5.430 .0000
Malvín Norte 216 −5.289 .0001 −7.172 .0000
Jardines 216 −6.395 .0000 −7.561 .0000
Villa Española 216 −5.881 .0000 −6.896 .0000
Peñarol 216 −5.357 .0000 −7.595 .0000
Tres Ombúes 216 −5.798 .0000 −7.126 .0000

and need to account for autocorrelation and then building models with treatment and
control groups.
We first tested for unit roots using Dickey–Fuller Generalized Least Squares
(DF-GLS). As shown in Table 2, the data by neighborhood are stationary for the
dependent variables. Even with differencing, these outcomes required an additional
autoregressive process, meaning a full ARIMA model was necessary, and accounting
for autocorrelation is essential in model estimation.
The final equation for each model is as follows:

Crimet = β0 + β1Tt + β2 X t + β3 X tTt + β4 Z + β5 ZTt + β6 XTt + β7 ZX tTt + εi , (2)

where Z is a dummy variable to denote the cohort assignment (treatment or control), T

is a time trend, and X is a dummy variable to indicate whether it is a post-intervention
period. Therefore, ZTt, ZXt, and ZXtTt are all interaction terms among previously
described variables (see Linden, 2015).
From Equation 2, β0 to β3 represent the control group whereas β4 and β5 represent the
pre-treatment differences in level and slope between the treatment and control groups.
Therefore, the non-significance of the β4 and β5 parameters suggests ideal conditions for
the comparison (Linden & Adams, 2011). β6 represents the difference between treatment
and control groups in the level of the outcome right after the crackdown. β7 indicates the
difference in slopes right after the intervention (crackdown). Finally, post-intervention
trends and differences between trends are computed for the treated unit and the control
one. By using synthetic controls at the neighborhood level, we assume confounding
omitted variables affect both treatment and control groups similarly. For evidence that
this is correct, in all models, β4 and β5 ideally will be close to zero.
We find higher order serial correlation in the error terms of our model.9 To deal with
this, one approach that we could have taken in response is to estimate the model with
ordinary least squares (OLS), which produces inefficient coefficient estimates in the
presence of serial correlation but would allow us to compute Newey–West Standard
Errors, which are unbiased measures of uncertainty in the presence of higher order
Bogliaccini et al. 11

serial correlation. The approach we instead took was to estimate the model using the
Prais–Winsten algorithm for Feasible Generalized Least Squares (FGLS). While
Prais–Winsten only allows for first-order serial correlation, the coefficient estimates
themselves will be computed without making an inaccurate assumption of indepen-
dent errors. In addition, if we estimate the model with OLS, we jeopardize comparison
conditions with significant values β4 or β5 for several models. When we instead esti-
mate the models using Prais–Winsten FGLS, not only do the coefficients gain effi-
ciency in the presence of serial autocorrelation, but the efficient coefficients jeopardize
ideal comparison conditions with a significant β4 or β5 in fewer cases than the OLS
model does. Given both the theoretical properties of the estimator and the added power
for our causal inference goals, we estimate models with Prais–Winsten FGLS. Results
are shown in Table 3. Alternative specifications, as well as OLS models with Newey–
West Standard Errors, are presented in the appendix.10
The neighborhood of Casavalle is a special case. The level of crime there is very
high, the land area of the neighborhood is very broad, there are two gangs at war with
each other, and the police intervened 8 times there during our time frame. Given the
wholly unique features of Casavalle, there is no reasonable comparison group for this
neighborhood with which to do difference-in-differences analysis. For this reason, we
turn instead to a univariate time-series intervention analysis. That is, we find the Box–
Jenkins noise model that describes the correlation patterns of crime (ARIMA model)
and measures the dynamic impact that the eight interventions appear to have on the
crime series in this neighborhood. Ideally, we would have been able to assess how
changes in Casavalle contrast from similar neighborhoods. However, given that the
neighborhood received eight separate treatments and has no approximate counterpart,
a single series analysis is the only viable option.

Results
For the models presented in Table 3, results for the effect of crackdowns on crime
reporting are mixed. As mentioned, the case of Casavalle is analyzed separately in
Table 4 as it is the only case for which there were several and recurrent crackdowns
beginning in Week 156 of our data and until the penultimate week for which we have
data (Week 220). The results presented in Table 3 are consistent with the literature in
general, in particular when taking into account that these crackdowns lasted only 1 day
in every case. As single-day raids, their potential to have a lasting effect on local drug
markets or even to reach a level of critical enforcement is low according to theoretical
expectations (see Baveja et al., 1993, 1997, 2000, 2004; Cohen et al., 2003). The
analysis of the two dependent variables (reports of robberies and violent crime) for six
neighborhoods creates 12 interrupted time-series models with multiple groups.
Overall, we find mixed evidence, within the boundaries of the data frame we have,
of crackdowns on crime. For robberies (see Table 1), there is a significant differential
effect of crackdowns in crime between treatment and control neighborhoods. Crime
goes down in Jardines and Peñarol, but it goes up after the raid in Malvín Norte. These
are the main results of the analysis. The post-raid trend in crime significantly increases
12
Table 3. Robberies and Violent Crimes by Neighborhood, 30 Weeks After and Before (Synthetic Control).
Cerro Norte Malvin Norte Jardines Villa Española Peñarol Tres Ombues

Violent Violent Violent Violent Violent Violent

Variables Robberies crimes Robberies crimes Robberies crimes Robberies crimes Robberies crimes Robberies crimes

T −0.006 −0.003 0.013 −0.006 −0.002 −0.013 0.004 0.004 0.002 0.01 0.004 0.008
(0.007) (0.007) (0.01) (0.019) (0.01) (0.008) (0.007) (0.01) (0.005) (0.008) (0.01) (0.012)
Z 0.188 −0.312** 0.402* −0.16 −0.719*** −0.067 −0.237 −0.058 0.563*** −0.1 −0.393* −0.146
(0.173) (0.155) (0.235) (0.439) (0.227) (0.178) (0.168) (0.226) (0.116) (0.184) (0.228) (0.278)
ZT 0.009 0.014 0.01 −0.001 0.028** 0.011 0.001 −0.01 −0.025*** −0.013 −0.012 −0.003
(0.011) (0.01) (0.014) (0.026) (0.014) (0.011) (0.01) (0.014) (0.007) (0.011) (0.014) (0.017)
X 0.349* −0.286* −0.251 0.08 −0.032 0.31 −0.124 0.082 −0.044 −0.04 0.022 −0.299
(0.176) (0.159) (0.239) (0.404) (0.243) (0.194) (0.188) (0.253) (0.136) (0.217) (0.277) (0.344)
XT 0.015 0.01 −0.011 0.007 0.033* 0.006 0.007 −0.01 0.031** −0.011 0.001 0.01
(0.01) (0.009) (0.014) (0.027) (0.017) (0.013) (0.014) (0.019) (0.012) (0.02) (0.031) (0.038)
ZX −0.421* −0.063 −0.405 0.237 0.124 −0.235 0.092 0.078 0.284 0.204 0.308 −0.468
(0.25) (0.224) (0.339) (0.572) (0.344) (0.275) (0.265) (0.357) (0.193) (0.307) (0.391) (0.487)
ZXT −0.019 −0.02 0.027 −0.005 −0.088*** −0.009 0.014 0.033 −0.023 0 0.03 0.066
(0.015) (0.013) (0.02) (0.038) (0.024) (0.019) (0.02) (0.026) (0.017) (0.028) (0.044) (0.054)
Constant −1.260*** −0.993*** −1.769*** −1.362*** −1.057*** −1.377*** −1.295*** −1.704*** −1.080*** −1.526*** −0.947*** −1.227***
(0.122) (0.11) (0.166) (0.311) (0.16) (0.126) (0.119) (0.16) (0.082) (0.13) (0.161) (0.196)
Post-trend control 0.0083 0.0072 0.0024 0.0015 0.0310** −0.0066 0.0111 −0.0063 0.0329*** −0.0007 0.005 0,0177
(0.0071) (0.0064) (0.0097) (0.0177) (0.0139) (0.011) (0.0119) (0.016) (0.0112) (0.0179) (0.029) (0.0360)
Post-trend treatment −0.0023 0.0016 0.0397*** −0.0051 −0.0293** −0.0052 0.0255** 0.0163 −0.0145 −0.0138 0.0235 0.0810**
(0.0071) (0.0064) (0.0097) (0.0177) (0.0139) (0.011) (0.0119) (0.016) (0.0112) (0.0179) (0.029) (0.0360)
Post-trend difference −0.0106 −0.0057 0.0373*** −0.0065 −0.0603*** 0.0015 0.0144 0.0226 −0.0474*** −0.0132 0.0184 0.0633
(0.0101) (0.009) (0.0137) (0.025) (0.0196) (0.0155) (0.0168) (0.0226) (0.0159) (0.0253) (0.041) (0.0509)
Weeks before 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30
Weeks after 30 30 30 30 23 23 21 21 17 17 14 14
Observations 118 118 118 118 104 104 100 100 92 92 86 86
R2 .17 .135 .463 .032 .301 .051 .169 .08 .397 .206 .302 .12

Note. Standard errors in parentheses. T, Z, and ZT (B1, B2, and B3 represent the control group), X (B4: pre-T diff level T vs. C); XT (B5: Pre-T diff slope T vs. C); ZX (B6: diff-in-diff
levels T vs. C); ZXT (B7: diff-in-diff slopes T vs. C).
*p < .1. **p < .05. ***p < .01.
Bogliaccini et al. 13

Table 4. Intervention Analysis of Eight Major Raids on Crimes in Casavalle.

Assaults Violent crimes

Parameter Estimate SE p Estimate SE p

December 20, 2017, 0.526 0.146 .000 0.046 0.105 .659
Mirador I Step
Decay, Mirador I Pulse −0.999 0.052 .000 0.386 0.478 .419
Effect, Mirador I Pulse 0.038 0.074 .605 −0.461 0.331 .164
March 15, 2018 −0.490 0.345 .155 0.504 0.325 .121
March 20, 2018 0.346 0.343 .313 0.115 0.325 .724
August 14, 2018 −0.158 0.342 .644 0.034 0.330 .919
August 28, 2018 −0.008 0.342 .981 0.316 0.328 .335
October 2, 2018 −0.236 0.339 .487 0.171 0.325 .600
November 20, 2018 0.226 0.345 .513 0.574 0.328 .080
March 11, 2019 0.017 0.355 .962 0.048 0.335 .886
Intercept −1.024 0.086 .000 −1.037 0.057 .000
φ1 0.271 0.068 .000 0.150 0.068 .026
φ2 0.136 0.070 .052 0.178 0.068 .009
φ3 0.056 0.071 .430 −0.025 0.069 .720
φ4 0.092 0.070 .190 0.157 0.069 .022
φ5 0.127 0.069 .066 0.078 0.068 .251
AIC 196.383 177.073

Note. T = 220 for all models. All interventions are pulse interventions, except the compound
intervention for Mirador I. Estimated in R 3.6.1. AIC = Akaike information criterion.

in Villa Española, albeit there is no significant differential effect versus the synthetic
neighborhood. For violent crimes, there are no significant differential effects in any
neighborhood. However, the post-raid trend in crime significantly increases in Tres
Ombues (see Table 1). We do not find any effect for Cerro Norte under any of the
proposed specifications. Hence, it appears that the effects of raids are sensitive to the
context of the criminal situation.11
Some limitations need to be put forward before entering into the substantive analy-
sis. Ideal conditions for comparison—given by the pre-treatment equivalence in level
and slope in the two groups, or non-significance of the β4 and β5 parameters—are not
present in all cases. A second limitation is that we are assessing the effect of the crack-
down on crime locally, not at the city level. A third limitation refers to the assessment
of long-term effects in that there are ongoing operations beyond the time frame of the
data. Therefore, the assessment of trends should be carefully pondered substantively
in the different cases.

Findings
We first assessed the effect of crackdowns on robberies. We find a significant down-
ward differential effect in the post-treatment trend in Jardines. During Week 197, the
14 Criminal Justice Policy Review 00(0)

Jardines crackdown took place in Complejo Quevedo, a housing complex built by the
government to relocate people living in slums. During this intervention, the police
detained eight people, four of which ended up in prison. Three of the incarcerated were
leaders of the “Figueroa” gang: led by Marcela Figueroa, her husband, and her father.
The gang had built a wall to fortify the housing complex, installing a 24-hr surveil-
lance system, including paid guards and 36 cameras around the drug-selling point. The
gang emulated the same forced home-eviction system as Los Chingas did in Casavalle,
with those families who remained in their houses put under continuous threat. It con-
trolled the commonplaces of the complex, in particular the multi-purpose meeting
room, using it as headquarters. The ability of the police to behead the gang, demolish
the wall and surveillance system, and return the original inhabitants to their homes is
consistent with the long-term downward trend that we find for robberies for the
remaining 23 weeks of our data.
We also find a consistent downward differential effect in the trend of robberies in
Peñarol. This is consistent with the reported evaluation of the raid made by the police.
The intervention was successful in capturing and imprisoning the leader of the Algorta
family gang and other relevant members. This gang was in a long-term conflict with
the “Tato” gang, from a neighboring area, for the control of the territory. Between
2015 and 2018, the war between these two groups led to 29 homicides and 36 wounded
people. However, the two groups greatly debilitated each other, with the Algorta gang
prevailing after joining forces with the Delfino family, before the police helped the
process with the capture of the latter group leaders. With the destruction of the remain-
ing Algorta gang, the drop in robberies has been a positive outcome for Peñarol.
By contrast, we find a significant upward differential effect in the post-treatment
trend in robberies in Malvín Norte. Cuyi’s gang in Malvín Norte was under internal
conflict since the capturing of the Cuyi by the police on Week 138 in an isolated event.
Cuyi’s wife took control of the gang, but internal rivalries appeared. The crackdown
took place on Week 181, with the direct involvement of 376 policemen. The interven-
tion included 29 home-search warrants and 13 persons were detained and incarcerated
on charges of drug crimes, vehicle robbery, illegal gun trafficking, and domestic vio-
lence. However, Cuyi’s wife was not among the detainees. This anecdotal evidence
goes in the direction of a short-term upward effect in crimes because of the partial
success of the intervention. Although our data end on Week 221, Cuyi’s wife was
finally incarcerated on Week 224 (noticias.uy, 2019). The increase in robberies during
the time frame of the study is reflective of the fact that Cuyi’s gang was not fully dis-
mantled at the time.
Turning to violent crimes, we do not find significant differential effects in post-
treatments trends, but we do find a significant upward effect in crime in Tres Ombues.
The case of Tres Ombues presents some particular features as it involves linkages with
drug dealing in soccer stadiums. During Week 206, the crackdown involved breaking
into 26 properties and detaining 16 people, although most of them were freed after
investigations. Drug dealers had surveillance camera systems in the neighborhood for
self-protection against other dealers. This case displays another two particular facts
about drug dealers: the between-group confrontation and its relationship with drug
Bogliaccini et al. 15

dealing inside soccer stadiums. Guns, money, and drugs were seized, although no gang
was dismantled. The crackdown involved demolition works on key houses. However,
consistent with our empirical finding, 16 weeks after the raid a pick-up truck was
burned with two soccer hooligans inside, who were incinerated. This crime shocked
the public because of its unusual violence and its direct linkage with drug dealing in
soccer. With persistent conflict among groups and gangs that have not been destroyed,
violent crimes have become even more pervasive in Tres Ombues.

The Special Case of Casavalle

Casavalle represents a special case because it is the only neighborhood in the sample
in which multiple crackdowns took place, beginning on Week 156 and not ending
within our period of study. In our sample, the last crackdown occurs on Week 220.
This scenario resembles a strategy based on a combination of short-term crackdowns
and backoffs. Casavalle is the most complex scenario for drug gangs and drug traffick-
ing in the city. Between December 20, 2017, and March 11, 2019, eight crackdowns
were carried out in Casavalle.
The first raid took place in December 2017 after 110 families were thrown out of
their homes by the gang, Los Chingas, as part of a plan to take control of Casavalle and
win the fight against the other criminal gang that is operative in the area, Los Camala.12
The occupied dwellings were rented or sold out to persons related to the gang, used as
a meeting place, or used as a place to deposit weapons, drugs, and stolen objects. After
the first crackdown, five of the Chingas’ leaders were imprisoned, and another six
were released or put under home-based surveillance, one of them being killed in a set-
tling of scores shortly thereafter. However, the only leader of Los Chingas who was
not captured managed to reorganize the gang.
Consequently, there were another six crackdowns in Casavalle during 2018, mainly
linked to new reports of home-usurpations, homicides, and settling of scores between
the two gangs. Many of the leaders in both gangs were arrested, but the groups reorga-
nized with new leaders. According to some sources, they continued to be operative
under the orders of jailed leaders. When considering the eight raids that took place
between December 2017 and March 2019 altogether, there were 185 home-search
warrants, more than 90 arrests, house demolitions, and thousands of police officers
working in the area.
It is interesting to observe how this strategy of 1-day crackdowns has allowed the
police to develop a varied set of strategies like demolitions to make the neighborhood
more searchable and to improve the accessibility of public services such as transporta-
tion or even the PADO patrolling in stages. However, it has also made it possible for
the gangs to regroup and to continue operations.
How did the eight raids that occurred within our time frame affect crime rates in
Casavalle? Table 4 shows the results of our intervention analyses, where the first three
numeric columns describe the results of a model of the logged total number of robber-
ies per 1,000 persons in Casavalle by week. The final three columns show the results
for the logged number of violent crimes per 1,000 residents of Casavalle. In the rows,
16 Criminal Justice Policy Review 00(0)

the first three rows show the results of a compound intervention for Mirador I, the first
raid conducted in Montevideo. This allows for a dynamic temporary effect followed
by a persistent long-term effect. The next seven columns show the effects of pulse
interventions of seven more raids. Following this is each model’s intercept, five
autoregressive parameters, and finally the Akaike information criterion (AIC) as a fit
index.
Focusing on the first row of Table 4, we see that there is a positive and significant
long-term effect of Mirador I on robberies in Casavalle. This means that crimes tended
to be more common in the portion of the series after this raid rather than before. There
was not a discernible additional temporary effect, however. Furthermore, Mirador I
had no discernible effect on violent crimes. The seventh raid, on November 20, 2018,
appeared to raise violent crimes temporarily, but no other raid had a discernible effect
on either of these series.13 We tried several functional forms for all of the interventions,
and the story shown in Table 4 is consistently what we find: Raids in Casavalle do not
show evidence of reducing crime, but on occasion, some raids correspond to a rise in
crime. Given that Casavalle is a space where two gangs are at war, it makes sense that
when one takes a hit from the police, the other makes a strong move to take control of
the territory—hence, the fact that crime has been elevated since Mirador I, driven
mainly by a rise in robberies.

Discussion and Conclusion

The study aims to analyze the effect of crackdowns on crime in Montevideo. To
achieve this, we use interrupted time-series analysis and intervention models for the
special case of Casavalle. Where ideal conditions for comparison are met, we find
scarce effects of crackdowns in crime reporting. In five out of six neighborhoods—
leaving Casavalle out—we find some significant effects for one of the two types of
crime that we study. However, significant differences in post-treatment trends exist
only for robberies and in three neighborhoods. But sometimes crime rises while other
times it falls. It also is notable that in our separate analysis of Casavalle, crimes may
have gotten worse as a response to raids. Past literature would imply that, unless a drug
market is completely crushed, it will restart after a crackdown. Given the rival gangs
in this neighborhood, stunning one gang may be counterproductive and an invitation
for the other gang to escalate its activities. In particular, the two cases where we saw a
discernible differential downward effect in crime were for robberies in Jardines and
Peñarol. In each of these cases, we qualitatively observe that the gang was utterly
crushed by police without a clear rival to encroach on the territory. By contrast, in the
neighborhoods of Casavalle and Malvín Norte (during the time frame of study), the
gangs were not fully beheaded and often had a clear rival. Hence, in the latter cases,
crime was elevated for a time—though in the long run, the raids may have been essen-
tial for preventing warring gangs from becoming entrenched.
Our findings offer implications for policy development and future research. One of
the most important findings is that crackdowns are not consistently effective in influ-
encing crime reporting. This is consistent with the literature in two important aspects.
Bogliaccini et al. 17

First, it is hard to reach levels of critical enforcement (see Caulkins, 1992) through
1-day crackdowns. The number of police officers involved in these crackdowns vis-à-
vis the results in terms of detainees, for the cases we have such data, also suggests
raids have not been particularly efficient. Second, in the same vein, crackdowns’ abil-
ity to alter drug-market conditions would depend not only on the ability to extract drug
dealers from the territory but also in preventing a rapid return. For the two cases in
which a significant difference in a downward trend in crimes occurs, Peñarol and
Jardines, qualitative evidence from police reports and press support the idea that gangs
were neutralized. For the cases in which an upward trend in crimes was found, similar
evidence is consistent with the idea that gangs were not fully discouraged from con-
tinuing fighting for the territory. Avoiding speedy returns, in the context of effective
rule of law, will depend on effective coordinated work between the judicial system and
the police for effectively finding convincing evidence of a crime. It also is important
to avoid replacement by natural selection, such as new dealers with improved strate-
gies (see Caulkins, 1992). Furthermore, the contrast in situations where raids were
effective versus ineffective also suggests that future research may want to consider a
key actor analysis for evaluating when and how crackdowns can be effective.
In Uruguay, the judicial system and the police patrolling strategies have been under
deep reform processes since 2013, which may suggest coordination costs have risen as
new actors and institutions are in place. There is strong evidence from press releases
about coordination problems and public conflict between the Attorney General and the
MI. However, it is reasonable to expect this capacity for coordination may improve in
the long run.
The effects we find are consistent with theoretical expectations given the qualita-
tive reports available for each case. This supports the overall claims that hot-spot
policing should be accompanied by other complementary strategies, and that raids
alone are an important albeit insufficient strategy. In Montevideo, focused-patrol-
ling (PADO) and CPTED strategies are two locally innovative strategies that author-
ities have been implementing, in a few cases in combination with raids. Moreover, a
new program of architectural and urbanistic interventions has been recently
announced by the authorities for Las Acacia’s neighborhood, which is expected to
contribute to raising the costs of dealers and therefore moving crimes downward
(see BID, 2018, for PADO evaluation and Casanova, 2019, for the urbanistic
interventions).
Finally, the evaluation of hot-spot policing should not be dissociated from a deeper
knowledge of the action and location of drug dealers in the territory. Uruguay, and
Montevideo in particular, is increasingly the focus of action of groups coming from
other Latin American countries, as Uruguay is one of the main routes for cocaine to
leave for Europe and worldwide. In this sense, hot-spot patrolling’s ability to modify
this higher level market should be considered, at least, insufficient. In the same vein,
policing strategies should also be combined with nationally crafted frontier protection
strategies. More research is needed in this nascent market that has the potential ability
to seriously threaten the rule of law and the state itself.
18 Criminal Justice Policy Review 00(0)

Authors’ Note
Previous versions of this work were presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political
Science Association (August 2019, Washington), the Annual Meeting of the Georgia Political
Science Association (November 2019, Savannah), and the Latin American PolMeth Meeting
(November 2019, Montevideo).

Acknowledgment
For helpful assistance, we thank Peter H. Reuter, Angelica Durán-Martinez, Matthew L. Hipps,
and Melissa Whatley.

Declaration of Conflicting Interest

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship,
and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship,
and/or publication of this article: The financial support from the grant FSSC_1_2018_1_147750
from the Uruguayan National Agency for Research and Innovation (ANII).

ORCID iD
Juan A. Bogliaccini https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8776-6313

Notes
1. See data from the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (http://www.
emcdda.europa.eu/news/2019/4/european-drug-report-2019-highlights_en).
2. Homicide Dataset 2019, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
3. Homicide rates per 100,000 inhabitants in these neighborhoods are equal to or higher than
countries such as Venezuela, El Salvador, Jamaica, or Honduras Homicide Dataset 2019,
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
4. See Mazerolle et al. (2006) for a systematic review-based classification of street drug-
market policing approaches.
5. See official presidential webpage at https://www.presidencia.gub.uy/comunicacion/
comunicacionnoticias/agenda-gobierno-bonomi-camaras-videovigilancia
6. Our sources are detailed press-based research and a personal interview with a high-ranking
official in the Police Department (October 2019, Montevideo).
7. The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are not publicly
available but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
8. The appendix is available upon writing to the corresponding author. For the neighborhood
level, we use a synthetic control group (see below). We are, however, unable to follow this
same strategy for the segment-based analysis as we are unable to obtain representative data
from household surveys at this level. Instead, we build a control group composed of the
segments surrounding the crackdown area. Also, in the main text, we focus on the period of
30 weeks before and after the crackdown, excepting cases when there were fewer than 30
weeks in the data after the crackdown. The rationale for this is that there is a steep change in
Bogliaccini et al. 19

the overall levels of crime in Montevideo on Week 154—presumably as a consequence of

an important change to the criminal code.
9. We use the Cumby-Huizinga test for autocorrelation (Baum & Schaffer, 2013; Cumby &
Huizinga, 1992).
10. See Table A.1 for segment-level analyses. See Tables A.2 and A.3 for the analysis of raids
at the neighborhood level using synthetic controls with Newey–West Standard Errors. In
responding to a reviewer’s suggestion, Table A.4 presents a random-effects model for all
the interventions. The model offers no significant results, which is consistent with the
results of the main analysis in two ways. Regarding robberies, some raids produced no
effects, others produced a decrease in robberies, and still one an increase in robberies.
Regarding violent crimes, no significant post-treatment differences in trend are found.
11. For both dependent variables, assaults and violent crimes, we are computing six hypothesis
tests to assess the raids’ causal effect. Conducting multiple hypothesis tests on the same
dependent variable increases the chance of Type I error, namely, increases the likelihood
of getting a significant effect purely by chance. We adjusted these hypothesis tests with the
Bonferroni correction (see Table A.5 in the appendix). Although this adjustment decreases
the confidence at which some results are significant, the main conclusions remain unaltered.
12. Press Article (La Diaria, 2018).
13. Table A.7 in the appendix shows a robustness check in which we shorten the series before
the first intervention. The results are similar, except that Mirador I has a temporary effect
of decreasing violent crimes. Plus, the second raid (March 15, 2018) has the effect of
temporarily lowering robberies but temporarily raising violent crimes. Despite these small
deviations, we generally do not see much of a crime reduction effect of raids.

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Author Biographies
Juan A. Bogliaccini is Full Professor at the Department of Social Sciences, Universidad
Católica del Uruguay. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of North
Carolina, at Chapel Hill. He is Leading Editor at the Latin American Political Economy Series,
Palgrave MacMillan.
Diego Pereira is an Adjunct Professor at the Department of Social Sciences, Universidad
Católica del Uruguay. He received his MBA from the Universidad Católica del Uruguay.
Juan Ignacio Pereira is a PhD student at Brown University. He received his M.A. in Public
Policy from the University of Chicago.
Cecilia Giambruno is a research associate at the Inter-American Development Bank. She
received his M.A. in Public Policy form the Universidad Católica del Uruguay.
Ignacio Borba is a research assistant at the Department of Social Sciences, Universidad
Católica del Uruguay. He is an undergrad student at the Universidad Católica del Uruguay.