Despite prevailing public and political wisdom that removing homeless encampments is necessary to reduce crime in an area, a new national study looking specifically at Denver’s crime rates after sweeps found the narrative was, in fact, mostly false.

“There is no evidence that sweeps make our community safer,” said Pranav Padmanabhan, the Denver-based lead author of the study published Wednesday in the national Journal of Urban Health.

Padmanabhan is a graduate student in Public Health at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus and one of four authors affiliated with the medical school. The fifth is with the University of California-San Diego School of Medicine.

Their study is thought to be the first of its kind in the nation.

Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, who has made dismantling homeless encampments a priority of his administration, did not directly respond Thursday to the study’s findings but his office, emphasizing that the study used data from before Johnston took office, issued this statement:

“We agree that just sweeping individuals from one block to the next without housing resources does little to effect real impacts in reducing street homelessness, which is why Mayor Johnston took immediate action to launch All In Mile High and change this policy when he took office, ensuring that the city strives to offer transitional housing resources when closing encampments and only conducts clean-ups when there are health and safety risks.”

Padmanabhan and the other researchers analyzed crime statistics near 300 mid-sized to large homeless encampments after a sweep between November 2019 and July 2023. They measured crime rates one, two, and three weeks after a sweep at one-fourth, one-half and three-quarters of a mile from the sweep site.

The results were calculated using Denver Police Department data submitted to the National Incident- Based Reporting System.

While on average there was a small decrease in car thefts and public disorder incidents in the first week after a sweep, as time passed, “crime filled back in” said Padmanabhan.

Other types of crimes did not decrease at all, the study found, and in some instances violent crime actually went up after a sweep.

To be clear, there was typically already a high rate of crime in the areas near the encampments, but researchers wanted to examine what happened to those rates after a sweep since many believed it would go down.

“Involuntary displacement is not associated with changes in clustering of crime and may exacerbate violence in nearby areas,” the study said.

Another significant finding was that sweeps can increase the likelihood that homeless people become crime victims as their often tight-knit community is dismantled.

“Involuntary displacement leaves people experiencing homelessness at a greater risk of experiencing theft, physical assault and sexual assault, suggesting that displacement may not have a positive neighborhood-level impact on crime or that potentially beneficial effects of the policy are not equitably distributed,” the study concluded.

The new study follows one published in April 2023 in the national Journal of the American Medical Association that found spikes in deaths, overdoses, and hospitalizations among drug users after a sweep if no interventions or outside services are offered.

Homeless encampments often give those within a sense of community where people look out for each other, advocates for the homeless say. If that community is dispersed, it becomes more dangerous for individuals if something goes wrong.

Out of the 23 cities studied, Denver had the highest overall potential for death among homeless drug users after a sweep, the 2023 study found.

The lead author of that research was Dr. Joshua Barocas, an associate professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, who specializes in improving health outcomes among those with infectious diseases. He also participated in the most recent study.

Barocas told The Gazette earlier this year that “there are real world consequences to an individual when they are displaced even if it’s a block or two away.”

He said that while this latest study only looks at Denver crime statistics, the results could be applicable to other cities struggling with what to do with encampments.

This is particularly relevant in light of the June decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in the City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, which gave cities broad authority to develop policies to deal with homelessness, including sweeps and arrests of people sleeping outside even if there is no other alternative.

Padmanabhan said the goal of his research was to offer potential guidance to city leaders. “We don’t have an agenda,” he said. So far, he said he has not received any public pushback for the findings.

Ana-Lilith Miller, an advocate for Housekeys Action Network Denver (HAND) which assists homeless people find housing and who was homeless herself on and off for 12 years, was pleased to learn of the study. “I think it’s a good step forward. With this kind of knowledge, the city can’t use the false narrative that sweeps reduce crime that people believe,” she said. “We’re not trying to be criminals; we’re just trying to live.”