Survey of Drug Enforcement Tactics of Law Enforcement Agencies in the United States, 1992

This program evaluation study is intended to capture fully the universe of drug enforcement tactics available in the United States and to assess trends in drug enforcement. The primary objective of the study was to learn more about the application of anti-drug tactics by police: What tactics are used by police to address drug use problems? How widely are these tactics used? What new and innovative tactics are being developed and applied by police? What anti-drug tactics are most effective or show some promise of effectiveness? To answer these questions, state and local law enforcement agencies serving populations of 50,000 or more were mailed surveys. The survey was administered to both patrol and investigation units in the law enforcement agencies. This dual pattern of administration was intended to capture the extent to which the techniques of one unit had been applied by another. The questionnaire consisted primarily of dichotomous survey questions on anti-drug tactics that could be answered "yes" or "no". In each of the 14 categories of tactics, respondents were encouraged to add other previously unidentified or unspecified tactics in use in their agencies. These open-ended questions were designed to insure that a final list of anti-drug tactics would be truly comprehensive and capture the universe of drug tactics in use. In addition to questions regarding structural dimensions of anti-drug tactics, the survey also collected standardized information about the law enforcement agency, including agency size, demographic characteristics and size of the agency's service population, and a description of the relative size and nature of the jurisdiction's drug problems.