Living Crime
Does Wealth Inhibit Criminal Behavior? Evidence from Swedish Lottery Winners and Their Children
David Cesarini et al.
NBER Working Paper, December 2023
Abstract:
There is a well-established negative gradient between economic status and crime, but its underlying causal mechanisms are not well understood. We use data on four Swedish lotteries matched to data on criminal convictions to gauge the causal effect of financial windfalls on player’s own crime and their children’s delinquency. We
estimate a positive but statistically insignificant effect of lottery wealth on players’ own conviction risk. Our estimates allow us to rule out effects one fifth as large as the cross-sectional gradient between income and crime. We also estimate a less precise null effect of parental lottery wealth on child delinquency.
The 2020 De-Policing: An Empirical Analysis
Dae-Young Kim
Police Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
In 2020, police activities decreased substantially across large U.S. cities in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the killing of George Floyd by a police officer. Less well understood are when and where the de-policing phenomenon took place. Using NYC panel data from 2017 to 2022 at the census tract level, the study found significant declines in proactive policing, immediately subsequent to the stay-at-home order and/or death of George Floyd. However, all police activities began increasing during the summer of 2020 and ultimately returned to the pre-intervention level and afterwards above it in early 2022. In addition, there is evidence that both the pandemic and BLM protests interact with neighborhood factors in affecting police activities, but not in the same direction. The results are robust across a range of model specifications. Finally, research and policy implications are discussed.
Heterogeneous Impacts of Sentencing Decisions
Andrew Jordan, Ezra Karger & Derek Neal
NBER Working Paper, December 2023
Abstract:
We examine 70,581 felony court cases filed in Chicago, IL, from 1990–2007. We exploit case randomization to assess the impact of judge assignment and sentencing decisions on the arrival of new charges. We find that, in marginal cases, incarceration creates large and lasting reductions in recidivism among first offenders. Yet, among marginal repeat offenders, incarceration creates only short-run incapacitation effects and no lasting reductions in the incidence of new felony charges. These treatment-impact differences inform ongoing legal debates concerning the merits of sentencing rules that recommend leniency for first offenders while encouraging or mandating incarceration sentences for many repeat offenders. We show that methods that fail to estimate separate outcome equations for first versus repeat offenders or fail to model judge-specific sentencing tendencies separately for cases involving first versus repeat offenders produce misleading results for first offenders.
Overdose Prevention Centers, Crime, and Disorder in New York City
Aaron Chalfin, Brandon del Pozo & David Mitre-Becerril
JAMA Network Open, November 2023
Importance: The first government-sanctioned overdose prevention centers (OPCs) in the US opened in New York City (NYC) in November 2021 amid concerns that they may increase crime and disorder, representing a significant political challenge to OPCs.
Design, Setting, and Participants: In this cohort study, difference-in-differences Poisson regression models were used to compare crime, residents’ requests for assistance for emergencies and nuisance complaints, and police enforcement in the vicinity of NYC’s 2 OPCs with those around 17 other syringe service programs that did not offer overdose prevention services from January 1, 2019, through December 31, 2022.
Results: No significant changes were detected in violent crimes or property crimes recorded by police, 911 calls for crime or medical incidents, or 311 calls regarding drug use or unsanitary conditions observed in the vicinity of the OPCs. There was a significant decline in low-level drug enforcement, as reflected by a reduction in arrests for drug possession near the OPCs of 82.7% (95% CI, −89.9% to −70.4%) and a reduction in their broader neighborhoods of 74.5% (95% CI, −87.0% to −50.0%). Significant declines in criminal court summonses issued in the immediate vicinity by 87.9% (95% CI, −91.9% to −81.9%) and in the neighborhoods around the OPCs by 59.7% (95% CI, −73.8% to −38.0%) were observed. Reductions in enforcement were consistent with the city government’s support for the 2 OPCs, which may have resulted in a desire not to deter clients from using the sites by fear of arrest for drug possession.
Rape and Sexual Coercion Related Pregnancy in the United States
Denise D'Angelo et al.
American Journal of Preventive Medicine, forthcoming
Methods: Data years 2016/2017 were pooled from the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, a random-digit-dial telephone survey of U.S. non-institutionalized adults 18 years and older. The analysis, conducted in 2023, examined lifetime experience of rape-related pregnancy, sexual coercion-related pregnancy, or both among U.S. women. Authors calculated prevalence estimates with 95% confidence intervals and conducted pairwise chi-square tests (p-value < 0.05) to describe experiences by current age, race/ethnicity, and region of residence among U.S. women overall and among victims.
Results: One in 20 women in the U.S., or over 5.9 million women, experienced a pregnancy from either rape, sexual coercion, or both during their lifetimes. Non-Hispanic Multiracial women experienced a higher prevalence of all three outcomes compared with non-Hispanic White, non-Hispanic Black, and Hispanic women. Among victims who experienced pregnancy from rape, 28% experienced a sexually transmitted disease, 66% were injured, and over 80% were fearful or concerned for their safety.
Professional Motivations in the Public Sector: Evidence from Police Officers
Aaron Chalfin & Felipe Gonçalves
NBER Working Paper, December 2023
Abstract:
We study how public sector workers balance their professional motivations with private economic concerns, focusing on police arrests. Arrests made near the end of an officer's shift typically require overtime work, and officers respond by reducing arrest frequency but increasing arrest quality. Days in which an officer works a second job after their police shift have higher opportunity cost, also reducing late-shift arrests. Combining our estimates in a dynamic model identifies officer preferences over workplace activity and overtime work. Our results indicate that officers' private costs of arrests have a first-order impact on the quantity and quality of enforcement.
Oregon’s Transitional Leave Program and Recidivism
Mark Leymon, Christopher Campbell & Kris Henning
Criminal Justice and Behavior, January 2024, Pages 43–65
Abstract:
The State of Oregon has operated an early prison release program called Short-Term Transitional Leave (STTL) since 1989. The program was designed to improve prison releasee reentry planning and reintegration in the community. In the last 10 years, Oregon expanded STTL several times, with individuals now being released up to 120 days early. We assessed whether differences in recidivism existed between STTL and those completing their planned sentence and if the length of their leave is associated with differential recidivism. We used propensity-score matching (PSM) to create quasi-experimental models. The results indicate no appreciable observed associations between STTL and rearrest, reconviction, or reincarceration. However, there were higher rates of technical violations among STTL participants, especially for those with the longest release time.
Officer diversity may reduce Black Americans’ fear of the police
Justin Pickett et al.
Criminology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Would police racial and gender diversification reduce Black Americans’ fear of the police? The theory of representative bureaucracy indicates that it might. We tested the effects of officer diversity in two experiments embedded in a national survey that oversampled Black Americans, producing several findings. First, in early 2022, nearly 2 years after George Floyd's killing, most Black Americans remained afraid of police mistreatment. Second, in a conjoint experiment in which respondents were presented with 11,000 officer profiles, Black Americans were less afraid when the officers were non-White (Black or Hispanic/Latino) instead of White and when they were female instead of male. Third, in a separate experiment with pictured police teams, Black Americans were less afraid of being mistreated by non-White and female officers. Fourth, experimental evidence emerged that body-worn cameras (BWCs) reduced fear among both Black and non-Black respondents. These findings support calls to diversify police agencies and to require officers to wear and notify civilians of BWC.
Policing the California Outercity: Drivers of Police Spending in a Changing Metropolis
Ángel Mendiola Ross
Social Problems, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper explores the intersection of two major trends in the United States over the last forty years: a substantial investment in local law enforcement and the diversification of suburbia. While previous research on police spending has focused almost exclusively on large central cities, this study broadens this perspective to assess how these dynamics play out in outer-ring suburbs. I construct a unique panel dataset of over 200 California municipalities and find that the drivers of police spending vary across the metropolis in significant ways. Fixed-effects models that control for unobserved heterogeneity across place suggest that suburbs with growing shares of renters spend more on police. Elaborating on the concept of renter threat, I show how increases in renter households are associated with increases in police expenditures across a range of model specifications in suburbia. I point to suburban homeowner concerns about crime and property values as well as the history of racial exclusion in suburbia that is often couched in economic terms as potential explanations for these findings. Results point to the enduring role of police as a contemporary mechanism of both social control and inequality in California suburbs.
Institutional Factors Driving Citizen Perceptions of AI in Government: Evidence from a Survey Experiment on Policing
Kaylyn Jackson Schiff et al.
Public Administration Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
Law enforcement agencies are increasingly adopting AI-powered tools. While prior work emphasizes the technological features driving public opinion, we investigate how public trust and support for AI in government vary with the institutional context. We administer a pre-registered survey experiment to 4200 respondents about AI use cases in policing to measure responsiveness to three key institutional factors: bureaucratic proximity (i.e., local sheriff versus national FBI), algorithmic targets (i.e., public targets via predictive policing versus detecting officer misconduct through automated case review), and agency capacity (i.e., necessary resources and expertise). We find that the public clearly prefers local over national law enforcement use of AI, while reactions to different algorithmic targets are more limited and politicized. However, we find no responsiveness to agency capacity or lack thereof. The findings suggest the need for greater scholarly, practitioner, and public attention to organizational, not only technical, prerequisites for successful government implementation of AI.