NUISANCE ABATEMENTS: FINAL REPORT

The four sites were chosen because they had been conducting nuisance abatement programs for 2-3 years and therefore had a substantial amount of experience to be reviewed. Each of the four States has had nuisance abatement statutes for at least 70 years. Although each law would probably have been adequate to address the new nuisances presented by crack houses and other drug law offenses in the 1980's and 1990's, social and political pressures led each of the States' legislatures to enact recent provisions targeted at drug problems. The present analysis of the four nuisance abatement programs revealed that each program had features that other jurisdictions could find useful in developing their own abatement programs. Nuisance abatement is central to maintaining order in the community, a primary police mission. The degree of difficulty involved in addressing a specific nuisance case depends on both the willingness and the capability of owners to take full responsibility for management of their property. Overall, all nuisance questions rest on the basic proposition that property owners are responsible for seeing that their property is used in accordance with the law.