The British Journal of Criminology, 2022, 62, 1213–1232

https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azac037
Article

Biased Enforcement Expansion?

Sociodemographic Differences in Police

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Drug Testing for Suspected Narcotics Use
1993–2015
Felipe Estrada, Olof Bäckman and Anders Nilsson*
*Felipe Estrada, Olof Bäckman and Anders Nilsson, Department of Criminology, Stockholm University,
106 91 Stockholm, Sweden; Felipe.Estrada@criminology.su.se.

Since the 1990s, Sweden has witnessed a steady increase in the control measures focused on drug
offences. These changes are results of political dynamics once pushed by centre-right parties but thereaf-
ter embraced by Social Democrats in government. The article examines the structure of police controls
of drug offences and the extent to which these controls have focused on different sociodemographic
groups during the period 1995–2015. The study shows that this intensified control of minor drug crimes
has resulted in successively larger proportions of youths from deprived areas being forced to provide
samples of body fluids. The criminalization of drug use constitutes an example of the significance of
crime policy for both crime levels and the composition of the offender population.

KEY WORDS: crime trends, policing, discrimination, register data, inequality, Sweden

INTRODUCTION
Over recent years, several countries and states in the United States have moved towards a decrim-
inalization of drug use. Sweden has not followed this trend, however, and the country’s strict
drug policy, with the goal of a drug free society, remains in place. Further, Sweden has witnessed
a steady increase in the control measures focused on drug offences. Important factors behind
this trend have been the criminalization of personal drug use in 1988, and the police being given
the power to take compulsory urine and blood samples from persons suspected of using drugs.
These changes are also reflected in Swedish crime statistics. While general offending has fol-
lowed the international trend of declining crime levels since the early 1990s, the so-called crime
drop (Tonry 2014), registered drug offences, and minor offences in particular, have instead
increased dramatically (Figure 1). This trend is thus primarily not an effect of a substantial rise
in the number of people using drugs, but rather of legislative changes and intensified efforts to
detect and prosecute these offences (Brottsförebyggande rådet [Brå] 2016; Tham 2021).

© The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies (ISTD).
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License
(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and
reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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Fig. 1 Trend in offences leading to a conviction. Minor drug offences (possession of a small quantity
of drugs, or personal use) and all other offences 1990–2017, Sweden

Usually, drug offences are not brought to the attention of the police via crime reporting, but
rather through police-initiated encounters based on suspicion. Suspicion formation, which is
particularly important in the case of minor drug offences, is linked to both police working meth-
ods and perceptions, and also to appearance, behaviour, time and place, which are all factors
that can lead to an initial suspicion. At the same time, suspicion formation based on these fac-
tors may also include elements of negative stereotyping and bias (see e.g. Quinton et al. 2000;
Schclarek Mulinari 2020).
The aim of this study is to examine the structure of police controls of drug offences in the
form personal use and analyse the extent to which these control activities have focused on dif-
ferent sociodemographic groups during the period 1993–2015. Our data comprise information
from various population registers on individuals, their childhood conditions and criminal con-
victions, and information from the Swedish National Board of Forensic Medicine (RMV) on
the individuals subject by the police to compulsory urine/blood tests as a result of suspected
drug use, and also the results of these tests. The data sources have a longitudinal structure that
allows us to follow the same individuals over time.
Specifically, we will study (1) to what extent different social groups have been required to
take urine or blood tests; (2) whether these tests have been positive or negative, i.e. whether
they have confirmed or disproved the police’s suspicion of drug use; and (3) whether the risk of
being forced to take such tests when one is innocent of drug use is affected by sociodemographic
conditions or other offending activity. We will also identify possible changes in different groups’
exposure to compulsory police drug testing over this period of enforcement expansion (1993–
2015). We focus on the presence of differences among individuals of majority and non-majority
background and among individuals who have grown up with low-income parents and who live
in the most socially disadvantaged areas of Sweden’s cities. We have restricted our analysis to
those aged 15–20. We know from previous research that the hit rate for police testing is very
high among older individuals, who are often known drug abusers, but comparatively low among
youths (Brå 2016), which makes youths the more relevant group to study given our interest in
sociodemographic variance in the focus of police controls.
There is an extensive literature on police bias focused primarily on poor, young, black males
(see e.g. Miller 2010; Legewie 2016; Ba et al. 2021). Although the central tendency in this
 SOCIODEMOGRAPHIC DIFFERENCES IN POLICE DRUG TESTING • 1215

research is a finding of a clear police bias in suspicion formation, which results in individuals
from specific social or population groups running a higher risk of being stopped by the police,
Fagan et al. (2016a: 628) have argued that several empirical challenges remain in relation to the
detection of such bias. Among other things, there is often a lack of relevant control groups and
benchmarks to assess proportionality. Legewie (2016) also emphasizes that we, despite all the
research on disproportionality in stop and search, still know very little about whether and how
it has changed over time.
Studying differences among people suspected of drug offences in the form of personal use

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also has relevance for questions regarding the distribution of registered offending and how this
distribution may change over time. Over recent years, a number of studies have indicated that
irrespective of which factors are implicated in the crime drop, their effects have varied across
different social groups. Crime trends differ, for example, between the sexes (Estrada et al. 2016)
and between different age groups (Matthews and Minton 2018; Sivertsson et al. 2021), with the
clearest decline being found among young men (Bäckman et al. 2020; Murray et al. 2021). As
a result, there has been an increase over time in between-group differences in registered crime.
The mechanisms underlying this trend have not been studied sufficiently however. Differences
in crime trends between social groups naturally pose a challenge to more general explanatory
models, and perhaps particularly those that focus exclusively on changes in the opportunity
structure.
Analyses of registered crime among different groups across time and space, should also
consider that outcomes may also be linked to changes in the justice system’s response to crime
(Nilsson et al. 2017). One explanation for increased inequalities in crime, and not least crime
as it is reflected in criminal justice statistics, might therefore be found in changes in police pri-
orities, including, for example, an increase in the intensity of police controls focused on socially
disadvantaged neighbourhoods. A change of this kind would be expected to lead to increased
differences in the risk of detection between those living in poorly resourced neighbourhoods
and those living elsewhere (McAra and McVie 2005).
The next section discusses the Swedish context and the political dimension of the policies we
analyse. Thereafter, we present a review of the research on police discretion and the theoretical
assumptions that provide a basis for interpretations of increasing or decreasing differences over
time in the focus of policing activities across different groups.

DRUG AND CRIME POLIC Y IN S WEDEN

Criminologists have often portrayed the Scandinavian countries as distinct from the rest of
Europe, by being characterized by low prison populations, a knowledge-based crime policy and
an absence of punitiveness in the public debate (Pratt 2008). At the same time, however, Nordic
criminologists have painted a somewhat different picture. This picture may be described as con-
stituting a shift from social policy to crime policy, with a concomitant change in emphasis from
treatment/rehabilitation to just deserts (Estrada 2004; Tham 2021). This punitive trend follows
a pattern where crime is a social problem that is primarily placed on the political agenda by
conservatives when social democratic governments are in power (Estrada 2004). These crime
policy trends also reflect the shifts seen in Swedish drug policy over the past 50 years (Lenke
and Olsson 2002; Tham 2021).
Having previously been defined as a medical problem, from the end of the 1960s, drug abuse
came instead to be defined in social and legal terms. Prior to an election defeat in 1976, the
Social Democrats had been in office since 1933. During the 1970s, Swedish drug policy devel-
oped in an increasingly restrictive direction (Lenke and Olsson 2002). This was manifested very
clearly in 1978 when the new centre-right coalition introduced a ‘drug free society’ as the official
1216 • The British Journal of Criminology, 2022, Vol. 62, No. 5

goal of Swedish drug policy. This goal was then used to push the new Social Democratic govern-
ments in the 1980s in a more punitive direction (Tham 2021). In 1985 prison sentences for the
possession of small quantities of drugs for personal consumption were introduced and later also
drug use itself was criminalized (1988). However, the centre-right parties were not satisfied and
following a campaign promising more law and order, they won the election in 1991 (Estrada
2004). After only two years in office (1993), this new government initiated and implemented
a law that gave the police the authority to take compulsory urine/blood tests from individuals
suspected of drug use. This legislative change is of central importance to our study since the

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focus of drug policing in Sweden since then has shifted from drug sales to personal drug use.
An evaluation of the first years of compulsory testing based on a suspicion of drug use showed
that the number of suspected offenders increased (see Figure 1) in two principal groups: older indi-
viduals with prior convictions for drug offences and youths with no prior history of registered drug
offending (Brå 2000). The focus of police efforts on known drug users has been linked to the police
motto ‘it should be hard to be a drug abuser’ (Lenke and Olsson 2002), but also to the fact that it
provides a simple means of increasing police clearance rates (Tham 2021). One of the objectives of
the criminalization was to increase the opportunities for early intervention (Brå 2000). The focus
on youths with no history of drug offending may be viewed as being in line with that intention.

POLICE DISCRETION AND DISCRIMINATION

There is now an extensive research literature presenting both quantitative and qualitative studies
of police suspicion formation in general and on stop and search and similar policing methods
in particular (Fagan et al. 2016a; Legewie 2016). One conclusion from this research is that dis-
criminatory practices have been found in both the United States and England, as well as in the
Nordic countries (Pettersson 2005, 2012).
Despite this knowledge, researchers continue to discuss whether the choices made by the
police to focus on the behaviour of certain groups should primarily be understood as a discrim-
inatory practice governed by stereotyping or as an unintended consequence of problem-ori-
ented, proactive policing. This is of course an issue that is difficult to resolve empirically, and
several researchers have noted that relatively few studies have been able to apply methods suited
to examining the extent of discriminatory outcomes (see e.g. Lundman and Kaufman 2003:
213; Fagan et al. 2016a; Legewie 2016).

Decreasing or increasing inequalities in policing practice?

Another issue we know less about is whether the bias in the institutional practices of law enforce-
ment agencies is increasing or decreasing. On the basis of cross-sectional studies conducted
over the years, we can of course conclude that such bias has not been eliminated. The problem,
however, is that the differing analytical strategies employed in such studies make it difficult to
draw definitive conclusions about changes over time.
In one of only a few studies that have employed comparable data over time, Miller (2010:
968) concludes that in England ‘the situation has become worse for black and Asian people. The
relative chances of people in these groups being searched, compared to whites, have apparently
increased’. There are also more recent studies reporting that the excess risk among blacks for
being stopped by the police was still high at the end of the 2010s, and that also point to the inef-
fectiveness of stop and search as a policing method (see e.g. Lennon and Murray 2018; Tiratelli
et al. 2018; Murray et al. 2021).
One limitation of these British studies, however, is that they are unable to analyse the signif-
icance of other factors, such as the individuals’ age, residential neighbourhood and offending
history, for differences in levels and trends in policing disproportionalities.
 SOCIODEMOGRAPHIC DIFFERENCES IN POLICE DRUG TESTING • 1217

In an American study, Legewie (2016) was able to show that discriminatory outcomes vary
over time. Events in the wider community, such as police officers being shot, have a marked
effect on the intensity of police activities focused on blacks. Legewie argues that to the extent
that such incidents occur with some regularity, and in the absence of strategies aimed at reduc-
ing discriminatory police practices (such as educational efforts, broadened recruitment etc;
see Ba et al. 2021), this may be assumed to result in an increase in discrimination over time.
Legewie concludes that the research literature is lacking in analyses of possible changes over
time in police suspicion formation, and in the focus of policing activities on different social

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groups.
Theoretically, it is reasonable to expect both increases and decreases in disproportionality
over time. A potential increase in the excess risk of being stopped by the police among minor-
ities, or for poorly resourced groups, might for example be linked to changes in policing strat-
egies and increased residential segregation. If the police are increasingly mandated to focus on
street crime and drug sales in socially disadvantaged neighbourhoods, the risk of detection will
naturally increase more for those who spend time in these areas (McAra and McVie 2005; Irwin
et al. 2013).
The opposite trend would instead be expected if restrictions were imposed on the police use
of stop and search. The changes introduced in England following the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry
(Miller 2010), for example, were expected to lead to a reduction in the disproportionalities
associated with policing. Similar effects might also be produced by a broadening of the police
recruitment pool that resulted in greater diversity among police officers. The idea here is that a
police service that is less dominated by white males will also be less biased in its actions (Ba et
al. 2021).
There are thus a range of processes that make it difficult to know in advance what we might
expect in the form of changes over time in the level of policing bias. Viewed from a European
perspective, Sweden is among the countries that has experienced the highest levels of immigra-
tion during the past 30 years. In parallel with this trend, Sweden has experienced increased res-
idential segregation (Andersson and Hedman 2016). During the 21st century, the police focus
on disadvantaged areas has also increased (Pettersson 2012; Riksrevisionen 2020). We would
expect this trend to lead to an increase over time in the risk of being subjected to police controls
among residents in these areas.
There is also reason to assume that in some respects, bias and discriminatory practices may
not have increased over time and may perhaps even have decreased. The awareness of these
issues has increased, which has among other things been reflected in police authorities being
required to formulate diversity plans, and the Swedish Police have now long been working to
encourage more women and people of non-Swedish background to apply to enter the police
training programme (Polisen 2021).
Nor is it altogether clear what outcome should be expected to result from the increased
police focus on minor drug offences. Depending on the focus of the policing measures
responsible for this increase, this trend might suggest a form a net-widening in line with
Cohen’s (1985: 44f ) classic description: ‘there is an increase in the total number of deviants
getting into the system in the first place and many of these are new deviants who would not
have been processed previously (wider nets)/…/They come from precisely those back-
grounds – fewer previous arrests, minor or no offences, good employment record, better
education, younger, female – which all research suggests to be overall indicators of greater
success’. Thus, we might expect that increased police controls would result in an expansion
of these controls to include more well-resourced groups of individuals whose drug use has
not previously resulted in convictions, not least in environments such as urban entertain-
ment districts.
1218 • The British Journal of Criminology, 2022, Vol. 62, No. 5

We may thus assume that there are different processes in play that might be expected to result
in both increases and decreases in the level of between-group differences in exposure to police
controls.

Interpretive framework: police controls and repressive drug policy

Figure 2 presents police controls and suspicion formation in the form a pyramid, in which the
base consists of the total number of daily interactions between police and citizens, while the top
of the pyramid consists of the small number of cases that result in convictions (see also Quinton
et al. 2000: 13). The data that this study has access to are highlighted in the figure in bold text.

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It is well established that the police have substantial room for discretion when conducting
control activities in the base of the ‘control pyramid’ (see e.g. Quinton et al. 2000; Fagan et al.
2016a; Murray et al. 2021). In Sweden, and to our knowledge, the same is true of other coun-
tries, there is no register data on this everyday police practice. The base of the control pyramid
includes all forms of relationship-building contacts in which escalation is avoided by both the
police and the young people concerned, since escalation can lead to negative consequences
for both parties (Pettersson 2012). The youths may risk being arrested, and the confidence of
neighbourhood residents in the police may be damaged if they perceive the police as acting dis-
proportionately harshly. One possible interpretation of this conflict between relationship-build-
ing and intervention is thus that when the police go so far as to arrest someone, they will do so on
the basis of a relatively good understanding of the situation and a clear sense that they are justi-
fied in their suspicions. This scenario might lead to a paradox whereby the controls conducted
in socially disadvantaged areas are both relatively extensive and implemented with a relatively

Fig. 2 Potential for bias in connection with different areas of police practice linked to the policing of
minor drug offences. Bold text indicates the data to which the study has access
 SOCIODEMOGRAPHIC DIFFERENCES IN POLICE DRUG TESTING • 1219

high degree of accuracy. At the same time, as a result of the extensive level of control, a certain
number of innocent individuals will nonetheless be subjected to interventions, such as arrests
for compulsory testing due to suspected drug offences. Less highly controlled groups of young
people living in other types of neighbourhood will instead go free.
Studies from England and Scotland have emphasized the significance of drug offences
for the extent of stop and search activities (Lennon and Murray 2018). Despite the major
infringement of personal integrity involved in being compelled to provide a urine/blood
sample (in most cases on suspicion of cannabis use), little research has been conducted on

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Swedish data relating to this testing. However, Pettersson (2005), in a study on police inter-
ventions linked to personal drug use in the year 2000, has shown that persons of non-Eu-
ropean background were more often subjected to body searches, and that the police less
often found these individuals to be in possession of drugs. The results of the compulsory
tests for drug use showed a similar pattern. A higher proportion of the tests conducted on
persons of non-European background produced negative results, i.e. they were not under
the influence of narcotics.
A report has also been published describing trends in compulsory drug testing by age and
sex (Brå 2016). The proportion of females among those tested was only around 15 per cent.
The study also showed that as the police had increased the number of compulsory drug tests,
the proportion of positive tests results had declined from approximately 90 to 75 per cent. The
police had the highest hit rate when they tested individuals who were already known to be drug
users. The lowest police hit rate was for youths under the age of 18, where just under 60 per cent
were positive.
Finally, we would like to note the results of a study analysing whether the focus of the police
testing of youths for drug use is directed at those areas where levels of personal use are highest
(Brå 2018). The study, which relates to Stockholm in 2015, showed the proportion of youths
who self-reported having used narcotics during the previous month was highest in higher-in-
come districts, and vice versa. For the youths registered as suspects for personal use, however,
the relationship was reversed. A larger proportion of youths living in low-income areas were
registered as suspects than of youths living in higher-income areas. The majority of the regis-
tered drug offences related to contacts that had been initiated by the police in public spaces. A
common scenario (see also McAra and McVie 2018) was that a police patrol had spoken to a
group of youths, and that one or more of these youths was deemed to be showing signs of having
taken drugs. In approximately one-quarter of the offence reports analysed, the suspicion for per-
sonal use arose once the police had initially suspected the individual of another type of offence.
It seems reasonable to conclude (see also McAra and McVie 2018 and Matthews et al. 2021)
that drug offences that occur in private contexts, in neighbourhoods where the police have no
regular presence, are subject to a considerably lower detection risk.
Our study will be able to show whether youths of different backgrounds are more
often suspected and subjected to drug tests than others, and whether certain groups are
more often shown to be innocent than others. It should be noted that this form of control
is one that takes place at a relatively high level in the control pyramid (Figure 2). When
the police determine to subject someone to a compulsory urine/blood test, officers are
likely to be relatively convinced that they are right in their suspicion, since such testing
involves both economic costs and will also show when incorrect judgements have been
made. The disproportionalities that we may identify should therefore be viewed as a con-
servative test of the occurrence of bias and inequalities in the focus of police activities.
Another important factor is that we will be able to describe changes over time, and thus
answer the question of whether differences in the risk of being subjected to testing, and
of testing negative, have increased or decreased.
1220 • The British Journal of Criminology, 2022, Vol. 62, No. 5

DATA AND ANALY TICAL METHODS

The study is based on a data set that combines information from different population registers
with information from the RMV database on urine/blood tests conducted in connection with a
suspicion of drug offending during the period 1993–2015.1 The study population comprises all
persons aged 15–20 resident in Sweden during the years 1993–2015 with a Swedish personal
identification number, who at ages 15 and 20 were living in one of Sweden’s three largest met-
ropolitan areas, Stockholm, Gothenburg or Malmö. Approximately 30 per cent of the country’s
population lives in one of these three areas.

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For an individual to be registered in the RMV database, the police must first, on the basis of a
reasonable suspicion, have taken the individual for a blood or urine test. Approximately 90 per
cent of these take the form of urine tests (Brå 2016). The tests are first subject to a screening
analysis either by the police or the RMV to establish whether the test shows traces of narcotics.
In cases where these analyse show drug use, a verification analysis is also conducted to defin-
itively establish the influence of drugs. Our data include the results from both screening anal-
yses and verification tests conducted by the RMV. A positive test result means that drugs are
present, and a negative result means that it has not been possible to confirm drug use. Neither
the police nor the RMV have any information on the number of tests that the police choose to
analyse themselves, without sending them to the RMV for verification. An examination of tests
conducted in 1998, however, concluded that only an estimated 3–5 per cent of all screening
analyses had not been forwarded to the RMV (Brå 2000).
To the extent that the police have chosen to conduct the first screening themselves, however,
we may assume that the proportion of negative tests is underestimated in our findings, since
there is less reason to forward these tests to the RMV. At the same time, it is clear that both the
number of samples received by the RMV from the police, and the number leading to negative
results, have increased substantially over time, which suggests that the police largely choose not
to use their own resources to conduct screening analyses, since they know that the samples will
subsequently be analysed by the RMV anyway.

Dependent variables
We study both prevalence and incidence of compulsory drug testing. Negative tests describes the
number of tests that fail to establish drug use. Hit rate describes the number of positive tests
per test conducted. In an initial, descriptive analysis, we present the distribution of these meas-
ures across different sociodemographic groups. The risk for a negative test is then used as the
dependent variable in a multivariate analysis, since this outcome is a function of both the testing
and hit rates and thus captures the possible bias in both these elements. We also view being
subjected to a negative test as constituting a greater infringement of the individual’s personal
integrity than being tested when one has actually used drugs. We consistently focus on the out-
come for individuals over the entire six-year period when they were aged 15–20. Since the first
year for which data are available is 1993, the first year for which we are able to create indicators
for accumulated risk for 15–20-year olds is 1998.

Sociodemographic variables and neighbourhood type

Information on the individuals’ sex, age and country of birth have been drawn from the Total
Population Register. For registered residents who were born abroad, we have used data from the
Migration Register to establish when they moved to Sweden, and we also have data on dates for
emigration and deaths. We have created a ‘Background’ variable, which distinguishes between

1 Since the data contain sensitive personal information, the project has been reviewed by Swedish Ethical Review Authority.
All data to which the study has access are anonymized.
 SOCIODEMOGRAPHIC DIFFERENCES IN POLICE DRUG TESTING • 1221

three groups: (1) Natives, individuals born in Sweden to at least one Swedish-born parent; (2)
Western background, individuals born in Sweden to foreign-born parents from West or Central
Europe, United States, Canada, Australia or New Zealand, or themselves born in one of these
countries; and (3) Non-Western background, individuals born in Sweden to foreign-born par-
ents from other countries, or themselves born in other countries.
As an indicator of socioeconomic circumstances, we use the family’s equivalized disposable
income when the study subject was aged 15. The income variable is divided into three catego-
ries: High income includes those households in the top 20 per cent of the income distribution,

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Low income the households in the bottom 20 per cent of the distribution, and Middle income the
remainder. We know from previous research that potential correlations between low income
and negative outcomes are not a result of the purely material effects of low income, but also of
other resource deficiencies associated with low income. Similarly, those individuals who have
grown up in high-income households are likely also to have access to other resources.
To describe the socioeconomic profile of the neighbourhoods in which individuals lived at
the time of their compulsory drug tests, we employ small area for market statistics (SAMS)
areas. The SAMS system was created by Statistics Sweden (SCB) in 1994 and covers the entire
country. The criteria used to create SAMS was that areas that included homes should include an
average of 1,000 residents. The areas were also to be homogeneous in terms of building type. We
have ranked all SAMS areas on the basis of the proportion of residents in receipt of income sup-
port, which constitutes a measure of economic problems at the household level.2 We distinguish
the 10 per cent of areas with the highest proportions of residents who are in receipt of income
support. It should be noted that this variable does not describe where the individual was subject
to drug testing, but rather the type of area in which the individual lives. We have chosen to base
the area variable on the situation at age 20, and have thus not been able to account for possible
moves between different residential areas. In order to avoid including overly small areas, the
analysis only includes SAMS areas with at least 500 residents.

Covariates
We are also able to control for two additional factors. Firstly, we control for which of the three
metropolitan areas of Sweden (Stockholm, Gothenburg or Malmö) the individuals live in.
Secondly, we control for levels of criminal activity, since this places individuals at risk of being
subject to controls in other criminal contexts, or of already being known to the police. In the
absence of self-report data, we employ criminal convictions data, excluding convictions for
minor drug offences. For all individuals in the study population, we have micro-data from the
Swedish convictions register. We have used these to create a variable that differentiates between
individuals with no convictions at age 15–20, those with one conviction and those with two or
more convictions. In previous studies, our use of this very rough categorization of registered
offending has shown itself to differentiate individuals with different offending histories and also
different life chances (Bäckman et al. 2014). In addition to this, all models include controls for
age and sex.

Methodological considerations
In the multivariate analyses below, we are interested in how the effects of risk factors change
over time. For this reason, we separate the observation period into two categories: one with a
relatively high hit rate and low test rate (1998–2006) and one with a relatively low hit rate and

2 As with household income, this indicator is also highly correlated with other indicators of deprivation at the neighbour-
hood level, such as the proportion with criminal convictions, the proportion with a low level of education and the proportion of
non-western immigrants (not shown).
1222 • The British Journal of Criminology, 2022, Vol. 62, No. 5

high test rate (2007–15; see Figure 3). It can be shown that comparing estimates from logis-
tic regressions across samples may result in false conclusions about changing effects (see e.g.
Mood 2010). This would suggest that linear probability models (LPMs) may constitute a better
choice, since the estimates from such models can be compared, while they avoid the potential
flaws of logistic regression.
One drawback of LPM is that the models may predict probabilities of less than zero and
greater than unity. As will become clear below, in our analyses, where the outcome is very
rare, the risk for negative predictions is clear. For this reason, the estimates reported should be

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treated as (absolute) risk-deviations from a reference category, rather than used for calculating
actual risk levels.

RESULTS
Figure 3 presents the total number of tests accumulated at age 15–20, plotted in the year in
which the individuals in the study population were aged 20, and the proportion of these tests
that produced a positive result. As can be seen from the figure, there is a substantial increase
in the number of tests conducted throughout most of the period examined. As the police have
subjected suspected drug users to more tests, the accuracy of the suspect identification process
has declined.
The trends shown in Figure 3 can be roughly divided into two periods, which will be used as a
basis for comparisons in the multivariate analyses. The first period (see Table 1) covers the years
1998–2006, when the number of tests was lower and the hit rate higher. During the second
period, 2007–15, the number of tests is higher but the hit rate lower.
Table 1 presents comparisons for our four outcomes. To begin with, it is clear that there are
substantial differences in the prevalence of drug testing between different sociodemographic
groups. The proportion of young males subjected to tests is almost five times that of young
females (5 per cent as compared to 1 per cent), which is in line with previous studies (see above).
Looking to differences in the number of tests, the predominance of young males increases even
further.

Fig. 3 Number of police tests for drug use in the study population as a whole (at age 15–20, among
those resident in Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö), and the proportion of positive tests,
1998–2015
 SOCIODEMOGRAPHIC DIFFERENCES IN POLICE DRUG TESTING • 1223

Looking to the three factors that are of central interest to this study, background, income
and the socioeconomic status of the residential neighbourhood, we find marked differences
for each of these variables. Among those born in Sweden to Swedish-born parents (‘natives’),
half as many have been tested per 1,000 of population compared to those with a non-native
background. Similarly, substantial differences can be seen between individuals who grew up in
households in the lowest- and highest-income categories, respectively (43.2 compared to 21.8
per 1,000 of population) and between those living in the poorest neighbourhoods and those
living in other neighbourhoods. Furthermore, these differences become even more marked

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when we look at the number of tests conducted. As expected, the factor most clearly linked to
having been subject to a drug test is registered offending. Among those convicted of at least two
offences prior to age 21, over one-third have been compelled to take a drug test, compared to
less than 1.5 per cent of those with no convictions. It should be noted, however, that in abso-
lute terms, the number of individuals with no convictions who have been tested is nonetheless

Table 1 Accumulated number of positive tests (hit rate), number of tests, tested and negatively tested
per 1,000 of population, during age 15–20. Residents of Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö at age
20.a N = 665,326
Tested Tests per % Positive Negatively N
per 1,000 1,000 tests tested per 1,000
Native 27.70 49.32 70.62 14.49 531,293
background
Western 48.55 93.62 74.93 23.47 32,129
background
Non-Western 51.27 106.18 71.91 29.82 101,904
background
High incomeb 21.83 36.11 69.95 10.85 180,655
Middle income 33.91 63.36 71.75 17.90 363,603
Low income 43.20 86.51 71.12 24.99 121,068
Not poor 29.39 53.01 70.50 15.64 580,357
neighbourhood
Poor 52.36 109.10 73.94 28.43 84,969
neighbourhood
1998–2006 20.21 32.77 74.92 8.22 294,553
2007–15 41.94 81.94 70.14 24.47 370,773
Male 53.28 103.45 72.01 28.95 327,079
Female 10.80 15.73 66.44 5.28 328,247
Stockholm 35.17 64.46 70.57 18.97 373,765
Gothenburg 24.75 46.10 75.56 11.27 168,015
Malmö 33.98 66.33 69.40 20.30 123,546
0 convictionsc 14.69 19.19 62.70 7.16 588,346
1 conviction 80.64 122.32 66.14 41.42 54,734
2+ convictions 379.75 991.19 77.26 225.39 22,246
a
Swedish residents at age 15.
b
Household disposable income at age 15.
c
All criminal convictions besides minor narcotics offences.
1224 • The British Journal of Criminology, 2022, Vol. 62, No. 5

greater than the number tested who have two or more convictions for other types of crime.
This means that for a large proportion of the youths who test positive, a conviction for minor
drug offences is the only conviction they are registered for during their youth. Further, the pro-
portion of those with a positive test comprised of youth who have no other convictions has
increased over time (from 31 per cent 1998–2006 to 44 per cent 2007–15, not shown), which
means that drug offences have become increasingly important as a determinant of which indi-
viduals are registered for crime.
One result that was perhaps not as expected is that differences in the proportion of positive

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tests are small and go in the opposite direction from the differences in the number of tests con-
ducted. What we see is a pattern whereby the most tested groups also have the highest hit rates.
Police are most often wrong in their suspicions with regard to youths with no convictions. This
may be interpreted as an indication of police suspicion formation focusing on individuals who
are already known to them, but also as indicating that these individuals may be subjected to
drug testing in connection with arrests for other types of offending. Here, it should be remem-
bered that minor narcotics offences are not included in the convictions variable.
The final column in Table 1 presents the risk of testing negative, which is also the outcome
variable employed in the multivariate analyses. Since this outcome is a function of the number
of tests and the hit rate in each group, the results in this column follow the patterns noted with
regard to prevalence and incidence. Thus, those who have tested negative at some point at age
15–20 include a much larger number of youths from the poorest neighbourhoods, or whose
parents have the lowest incomes, or who have a non-native background. In order to analyse var-
ious composition effects, Table 2 presents the results from LPMs conducted in six steps.
The first model presents the results for background, family income and neighbourhood
resources—following controls for sex, metropolitan area of residence and period. The esti-
mates in the table are expressed in risk differences. For example, the value 13.79 for individ-
uals of non-Western background means that the risk of testing negative for this group is 14

Table 2 Estimates from linear probability regressions on the accumulated risk (× 1,000) for having a
negative drug test at age 15–20 in Sweden 1998–2015. All models include controls for period, sex and
metropolitan area. Non-significant (p ≤ 0.05) estimates in parentheses. N = 665,326
1a 2 3 4 5 6 Risk-level at ref.b
Native background 0 0 0 0 0 14.49
Western background 9.71 8.35 8.01 6.94 (0.89)
Non-Western background 13.79 10.90 10.08 7.86 2.01
High incomec 0 0 0 0 0 10.85
Middle income 6.99 5.82 6.13 5.45 2.61
Low income 13.85 9.02 10.81 7.94 3.74
Not poor neighbourhood 0 0 0 0 0 15.64
Poor neighbourhood 15.08 10.77 12.63 9.95 3.24
0 convictionsd 0 7.16
1 conviction 32.43
2+ convictions 213.19
a
Factors entered separately with control for period, sex and metropolitan area.
b
Average unadjusted risk × 1,000 at reference category (see Table 1).
c
Equivalized disposable household income at age 15.
d
Accumulated over ages 15–20. Minor narcotics convictions excluded.
 SOCIODEMOGRAPHIC DIFFERENCES IN POLICE DRUG TESTING • 1225

risk-units (expressed in terms of the risk per 1,000 of population) higher than the risk for the
native-background group. These results confirm the bivariate patterns presented in Table 1. The
single greatest excess risk for being subjected to a drug test that produces a negative result is
found for those individuals who live in poorly resourced neighbourhoods. In order to examine
how these different factors interact, Models 2–4 study outcomes following pairwise controls.
Model 2, for example, shows the results for non-native background following control for paren-
tal income, and vice versa, but without controlling for the neighbourhood in which individuals
live. As expected, since individuals of non-native background more often live in low-income

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households, there is a decline in the excess risk. It can be noted that irrespective of income or
background, the estimates remain significant for each of these factors. The same pattern is found
in Models 3 and 4, which control for the level of neighbourhood resources.
In Model 5, we include all three sociodemographic factors simultaneously. By comparison
with Model 1, Model 5 shows a notable decline in the excess risk of having a negative test both
for those of non-native background and those who have grown up in the poorest families. The
decline is smaller for youths living in the poorest neighbourhoods. This means, for example,
that youths living in poorly resourced neighbourhoods are more often subject to compulsory
drug tests that produce a negative result irrespective of parental income or whether they are of
native or non-native background. The same is the case of course if we instead focus on youths
of non-native background, who are thus at significantly higher risk of being subject to a negative
drug test than youths of native background, irrespective of parental income or neighbourhood
of residence. Finally, given the results presented above showing the major significance of regis-
tered offending to age 20, it is reasonable to examine whether these excess risks remain when we
control for convictions. Model 6 shows a very substantial excess risk of having a negative drug
test among those with two or more convictions, which also means that the significance of the
three sociodemographic factors declines markedly. Individuals from the Western background
group no longer have a significant excess risk of testing negative compared to youths of native
background. For youths of non-Western background, however, significant differences remain,
although the size of this estimate is smaller than that of the estimates relating to the measures
focused on resources—parental income and the socioeconomic status of the neighbourhood.
This means that a large part of the excess risk for youths of non-native background is related to
factors other than their ethnic background. Even following control for the major importance of
registered offending, the results show that compulsory drug testing remains disproportionately
focused on youths living in the poorest neighbourhoods in Sweden’s metropolitan areas. Given
the infringement of personal integrity associated with being compelled to provide a blood/
urine sample, these differences in the risk for being subjected to compulsory testing when inno-
cent of drug use are significant.

Change over time

Figure 4a–c presents interaction effects between the periods examined (1998–2006 and 2007–
15) and each of the three sociodemographic variables that constitute the focus of this study.
The different interaction effects have been estimated separately using Model 6 in Table 2 as the
baseline (see Table A1 for the complete models).
As can be seen from Figure 4a, there is a shift in the pattern for the variable background
between Periods 1 and 2. During the first period, the two groups of non-native background were
at lower risk of being tested when they had not used drugs than the native-background group
(the reference group in Figure 4a is those with native background in Period 1, and this group
therefore has the value 0 for the period 1998–2006) when the other variables in the regres-
sion model are controlled for. During the second period, the risk for a negative test increases
for all three categories of the background variable, but increases more for those of non-native
1226 • The British Journal of Criminology, 2022, Vol. 62, No. 5

background, and during Period 2, we see that the risk is higher for these groups than for youth
of native background.
A similar pattern can be seen in Figure 4b, which shows the interaction effect between period
and household income at age 15. During the first period, the risk for a negative test is lower for
the low-income group than for those who had grown up in a high-income household, given con-
trols for the other variables in the model. During Period 2, the risk for a negative test increases

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Fig. 4 ( a–c) Risk (× 1,000) differences for a negative drug test. Interaction effects between period
and three factors
 SOCIODEMOGRAPHIC DIFFERENCES IN POLICE DRUG TESTING • 1227

in all income groups, but the increase is greater for those from low- and middle-income house-
holds than for those from high-income households, which has resulted in the risk for both the
low- and middle-income groups exceeding the risk for youths from high-income households.
In Figure 4c, the same pattern is repeated once again, with a negative correlation between
living in a poor neighbourhood and the risk for testing negative during the first period shifting
to a positive correlation during Period 2.
Thus, we see a clear pattern whereby a negative correlation between risk exposure, in
terms of non-native background, growing up in a low-income household or living in a

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poorly resourced neighbourhood, and the risk of being subjected to a drug test that pro-
duced a negative result during Period 1, is transformed into a positive correlation in Period
2. Here, it can be noted that the negative correlations noted during Period 1 are only found
when we control for the other variables in the regression model. Without controls for these
variables, the correlations are also positive during the first period (not shown). The single
most important factor in this regard is the number of convictions. One possible interpre-
tation is therefore that during the first period, when the number of tests was lower and the
hit rate higher, drug policing activities were more concentrated to the ‘usual suspects’, i.e.
to individuals already known to the police. The increasing number of drug tests during
Period 2 has then also involved a net-widening process. This process has, however, been
disproportionately focused on those of non-native background, those from low-income
households and those who live in poorly resourced neighbourhoods.

DISCUSSION
The aim of this study has been to examine the structure of police controls of drug offending
and more specifically to analyse the extent to which these control activities have focused
on different sociodemographic groups during the period 1993–2015. Since our data have a
longitudinal structure, we have been able to study experiences of having been forced to take
a compulsory urine/blood test during youth as a result of a suspicion of drug use. We have
noted that there is an extensive literature on policing bias focused primarily on poor, young,
males from minority backgrounds. We have contributed to this literature by means of an
analysis in which we are able to account for various relevant background factors, such as
offending activity, but also by addressing the knowledge gap concerning whether and how
disproportionalities in policing bias have changed as (drug) enforcement has expanded.
Furthermore, to the extent that there are differences between sociodemographic groups
in the rate at which the risk of being subjected to controls for drug use changes over time,
our results are also of significance for how we should interpret increasing or decreasing
differences in registered crime between different groups. Our results can be summarized in
the following four points:
Firstly, there are significant differences between social groups with regard to their experiences
of being required to provide urine or blood samples for drug testing. Individuals of non-major-
ity background and those who have grown up with low-income parents or who live in the most
socially disadvantaged areas run about twice the risk of others of being tested for narcotics use.
Secondly, there are smaller differences in hit rates, i.e. whether the tests have confirmed or
disproved the police’s suspicion of drug use. The police are most accurate in their suspicions
when they test youths who have a record of several criminal convictions, and they are least accu-
rate when they test youths with no criminal record. However, the sociodemographic differences
with respect to the hit rate are small.
Thirdly, taken together, the higher rates of testing among certain groups point to the
fact that the risk of compulsory drug testing when innocent of drug use is clearly affected
1228 • The British Journal of Criminology, 2022, Vol. 62, No. 5

by sociodemographic conditions and neighbourhood status; always to the disadvantage of

those with fewer resources. Clearly, some of these differences are explained by variations
in offending history across the groups examined, but it is noteworthy that these patterns
for the most part remain significant even when these variations are controlled for in our
regression analyses. This implies that young people of non-native origin who have never
been convicted of crime, are more often subjected to compulsory drug testing than others,
despite being innocent of drug use.
Lastly, we can show significant changes in different groups’ exposure to compulsory police

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drug testing over time. During the first part of the analysed period, the differences between
groups were small and became non-significant following controls for composition and offend-
ing activity. During the second part of the period, the risk of being negatively tested increased
for all groups, but considerably more so for youth of non-native background, youth from poor
families and youth from the poorest neighbourhoods.
We would argue that these results are of significance for discussions of the consequences of
changes in control policies and policing priorities. Recently, Neil and Sampson (2021) con-
cluded that decreasing drug enforcement in Chicago led to the largest reductions in arrest rates
among more disadvantaged groups. In Sweden, we can show that a similar, however reversed,
pattern applies during times of enforcement expansion. Another finding that has been the sub-
ject of much discussion in the literature is that police controls are not only more often focused
on certain groups, but are also experienced as unjust and disrespectful by those subjected to
them. These experiences are linked to feelings of humiliation, anxiety or even fear, and also to
lower levels of confidence in the police and the justice system in general (Fagan et al. 2016b;
Murray et al. 2021; Schclarek Mulinari 2020). Our study shows that the consequences of the
police’s successive expansion of drug testing in many respects coincides with Stanley Cohen’s
(1985) description of the consequences of net-widening. Majority population youth from
middle-class families, who previously ran a low risk of detection with regard to drug use, were
indeed also caught to a greater extent in the widening net of policing, but it is also important to
note that minority youth from less well-resourced homes, living in poor neighbourhoods, have
been hit harder by this policing strategy.
Studying differences in compulsory control measures across sociodemographic groups
also has implications for questions regarding the distribution of registered offending and
how this distribution may change over time. Besides being due to variations in opportunity
structures and crime propensity, our results suggest that such outcomes are also linked
to changes in the political system’s response to crime. The changes that have occurred in
Swedish drug policy, and its consequences, are clearly a result of a political dynamic. It was
once initiated and pushed by centre-right parties, but has now become the only possible
drug policy for most of the political parties in Sweden, and of these the Social Democrats
have become one of those most reluctant to alternative strategies to deal with the drug
problem (Tham 2021). The criminalization of drug use and changes in police priorities
constitute an example of the significance of crime policy for both crime levels and the com-
position of the offender population. These punitive policies have resulted in more youths
being convicted, with a substantial proportion (40 per cent) of these only being convicted
of minor drug offences. As a result, the reductions in crime witnessed in other countries
have in Sweden been slowed by the intensification of drug controls. The strategy has also
led to large numbers of youths being subjected to invasive control measures that are fur-
thermore often directed at individuals who are innocent, which is likely to have negatively
affected these youths’ confidence in the agencies and agents of the criminal justice system.
The increase in the intensity of police controls focused on drug offending has led to increased
differences in the risk for detection between those living in poorly resourced neighbourhoods
 SOCIODEMOGRAPHIC DIFFERENCES IN POLICE DRUG TESTING • 1229

and those living elsewhere. Such differences may in the short run be misinterpreted as changes
in actual criminal behaviour. In the long run, these processes may result in stigma and affect
the propensity for crime in various groups via a process of cumulative disadvantage. Being reg-
istered for criminal activity at younger ages has been shown to negatively affect the youth-to-
adulthood transition (McAra and McVie 2005; Nilsson et al. 2013).

Limitations and conclusion

Our study is naturally subject to a number of limitations. One of these relates to the pos-

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sibility of taking triggers for suspicion formation into account. We lack data on the more
everyday prioritizations made by police, and this is the level at which we would expect the
greatest degree of police bias. As a result, our data on compulsory drug testing are likely to
underestimate the between-group differences that constitute the focus of the study. Thus,
being able to supplement the register data used here with data on self-reported offending
would have been of value. Given that our goal has been to study accumulated risks at age
15–20, however, and to do so over a long period of time, register data constitute the only
option available to us. Finally, there is some degree of uncertainty regarding how often the
police send tests that initially produce a negative result on to the RMV for verification. We
know, however, that the proportion that are not sent for verification is low, and that the
trend in police drug testing has been towards a greater number of tests, of which a larger
proportion produce negative results. Nonetheless, this uncertainty also means that the
between-group differences identified may represent underestimations, and that the degree
to which this is the case may vary somewhat over time.
Despite these limitations, we have been able to show both substantial differences between
different groups of youths and changes over time. Both the between-group differences and the
trends over time have furthermore been found to disfavour the socially disadvantaged individu-
als, even after controlling for compositional effects and registered offending.
The fact that we can show an increase in the disproportionality of police controls that were
already unequal at onset has policy implications apart from the stigmatization of drug users.
There is consensus within the field of police research that confidence in the police has more to
do with whether police conduct is perceived as correct and equitable than with the potential
effectiveness of policing methods (Murray et al. 2021). Being stopped and singled out for inva-
sive control measures thus involves a risk to police legitimacy, not least when those exposed to
such controls are found to be innocent. To work proactively in certain socially deprived areas
may of course be a rational strategy from the police’s point of view. We show, however, that the
intensified control of minor drug crimes has resulted in a successively larger proportion of youth
from deprived areas being forced to provide samples of urine or blood to prove their innocence.

Funding
This research was funded by the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet), grant no.
2015-01201.

Acknowledgements
The authors would like thank Tove Pettersson, the guest editors of this special issue and two
anonymous reviewers for valuable comments on earlier versions of this article and David
Shannon for English proof reading. Special thanks go also to Anna Jönsson and Marie-Louise
Hallingström at the Swedish National Board of Forensic Medicine, both for delivering and for
help with understanding the drug test data.
1230 • The British Journal of Criminology, 2022, Vol. 62, No. 5

APPENDIX

Table A1 Estimates from full linear probability regressions on the accumulated risk (× 1,000) for
negative narcotics test in ages 15–20 in Sweden 1995–2015. Non-significant (p > 0.05) estimates in
parentheses. N = 665,326
I II III IV
Native background 0 0 0 0

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Western background 0.89 −5.61 (0.945) (0.95)
Non-Western background 2.01 −8.94 1.9433 1.61
High income 0 0 0 0
Middle income 2.61 2.69 (−1.11) 2.68
Low income 3.74 4.07 −5.34 3.83
Not poor neighbourhood 0 0 0 0
Poor neighbourhood 3.24 3.51 3.40 −5.41
1998–2006 0 0 0 0
2007–15 18.28 14.98 11.52 16.05
Woman 0 0 0 0
Man 12.85 12.87 12.84 12.84
Stockholm 0 0 0 0
Göteborg −5.73 −5.74 −5.68 −5.73
Malmö 1.32 1.19 1.27 1.23
0 convictions 0 0 0 0
1 conviction 32.43 32.50 32.46 32.39
2+ convictions 213.19 213.36 213.31 213.19
2007–15 × Western background 13.26
2007–15 × non-Western background 17.94
2007–15 × middle income 6.94
2007–15 × low income 16.47
2007–15 × poor neighbourhood 17.31
Constant −10.89 −9.15 −7.29 −9.62

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