Securing the Streets
On the Robustness of Black Americans’ Support for the Police: Evidence From a National Experiment
Linda Balcarová et al.
Journal of Criminal Justice, May-June 2024
Abstract:
Recent polls reveal a complex picture of policing attitudes in Black America. Although most Black Americans are afraid of the police, most also prefer to maintain (or increase) local police presence and spending. Are these paradoxical policy preferences artifacts of the questions used in Gallup and Pew polls -- questions that fail to disentangle assumptions about trends in crime and police reform? We tested this experimentally using a nationwide survey (N = 1,100) with comparable numbers of Black (N = 511) and non-Black (N = 589) respondents. We found that Black Americans’ policing preferences were robust -- if anything, they were more robust than those of non-Black Americans. Most Black Americans said that even if crime was declining and new police reforms were not enacted, they would still prefer to maintain (or increase) police patrols and spending. Both fear of police and perceived procedural justice predicted policy preferences, regardless of respondents’ race.
The effect of formal de-policing on police traffic stop behavior and crime: Early evidence from LAPD's policy to restrict discretionary traffic stops
Hunter Boehme & Scott Mourtgos
Criminology & Public Policy, forthcoming
Abstract:
On March 1, 2022, correspondence from the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) headquarters stated that officers can no longer use minor infractions (e.g., equipment violations) as a pretextual reason to further investigate drivers for criminal behavior. If LAPD officers are to execute a discretionary stop, they must activate their body-worn cameras and reasonably articulate to the civilian why they are being investigated. The intent is to reduce racial/ethnic disparities in stops and build trust of the police within the community. Critics of the policy argue that elevated crime rates will result due to the crime suppression effect of such stops. This study examines racial differences in stops before and after the policy change, as well as whether Part 1 violent and property crimes increased. Descriptive findings show that while the counts of stops, arrests, and contraband seizures during stops decreased, the percentage of non-White civilians stopped decreased only minimally following the intervention. Results from using Bayesian synthetic control methods indicate an increase in both violent and property crimes post-intervention compared with the synthetic counterfactual. The increase in violent crimes has a low probability of being different from the counterfactual, whereas the increase in property crimes has a high probability, suggesting that the intervention led to a real change in property crimes compared with what would have been expected under the counterfactual.
Homelessness and Crime: An Examination of California
Benjamin Artz & David Welsch
University of Wisconsin Working Paper, June 2024
Abstract:
We employ a unique 10-year panel dataset from California to examine both the effect crime has on homelessness as well as the effect homelessness has on crime. Our main estimator accounts for endogeneity by incorporating dynamics, controlling for time invariant unobserved heterogeneity, and relaxing the strict exogeneity assumption for our key variables of interest. We find strong evidence that regions experiencing increases in property crime, but not violent crime, should expect a practically significant increase in homelessness, whereas increases in homelessness increases the number of violent crimes, but not property crimes. Robustness and falsification checks confirm the results.
Frontline Professionals in the Wake of Social Media Scrutiny: Examining the Processes of Obscured Accountability
Arvind Karunakaran
Administrative Science Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Professional accountability is considered important to the legitimacy and survival of a profession. Prior research has examined the role of top-down scrutiny by audiences, such as supervisors, regulators, and certification agencies, in improving professional accountability. But the advent of social media platforms has increasingly enabled the bottom-up scrutiny of professionals -- especially professionals on the front line -- by audiences such as customers and the public. In this research, I examine how and when bottom-up scrutiny through social media (hereafter, social media scrutiny) impacts the accountability of frontline professionals. Conducting an ethnography of 911 emergency management organizations, I find that social media scrutiny of 911 call-takers -- the frontline professionals in this setting -- can obscure rather than improve professional accountability. I elaborate on how, why, and under what conditions social media scrutiny pushes frontline professionals to deviate from their mandate, which, in turn, obscures their sense of professional accountability. These processes also generate spillover effects on the everyday work and mandate of downstream professionals (e.g., 911 dispatchers, police officers), producing a cascading set of unintended consequences that further obscures accountability for multiple actors across the professional ecosystem.
Recreational marijuana legalization and drug-related offenses in Washington State: An interrupted time series analysis with a combination of synthetic controls
Guangzhen Wu & Roarke Cullenbine
Journal of Experimental Criminology, June 2024, Pages 395-420
Abstract:
An important public concern surrounding the legalization of recreational marijuana is its impact on offenses related to hard drugs such as heroin, cocaine, and other dangerous drugs, about which competing perspectives exist. Prior research using rigorous methodology to empirically examine this issue remains limited. Based on Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program data from 2007 to 2019 and a quasi-experimental research design involving interrupted time series analysis (ITSA) and the synthetic control method (SCM), this study examines the effects of recreational marijuana legalization on the rates of a variety of drug offenses including possession violations related to marijuana, heroin/cocaine and their derivatives, and other dangerous nonnarcotic drugs in Washington State (WA), which passed its recreational marijuana law (RML) in late 2012 and began legal sales in July 2014. This study found that WA has experienced decreases in the rate of possession offenses for the two categories of more harmful drugs -- heroin/cocaine and their derivatives, and other dangerous nonnarcotic drugs -- over the post-sale period, relative to the states that have not legalized marijuana for recreational use, offering some evidence suggesting a drug offense reduction effect of marijuana legalization.
Drug Decriminalization, Public Health, and Crime: Evidence from Oregon
Liam Sigaud et al.
George Mason University Working Paper, May 2024
Abstract:
The war on drugs is widely criticized for failing to achieve its objectives and for its negative collateral effects. We investigate how a stark departure from this approach affects crime. We examine Oregon's Measure 110, a law that eliminated criminal penalties for personal possession of all drugs and increased funding for public health initiatives. Using a synthetic difference-indifferences strategy, we find that Measure 110 caused a 60% reduction in homicides, thereby preventing 72 deaths per year. It also caused a 23% increase in robberies (330 per year) and a 10% increase in burglaries (1,649 per year). We find no evidence of changes in other crimes. Applying standard social cost estimates, we estimate that Measure 110 decreased the net social cost of crime by about $828 million per year.
Drink...then drive away: The effects of lowering the blood alcohol concentration in Utah
Javier Portillo, Wisnu Sugiarto & Kevin Willardsen
Health Economics, August 2024, Pages 1869-1894
Abstract:
In March of 2017 Utah announced its intent to lower the legal blood alcohol content (BAC) for driving from 0.08 to 0.05 g/dL. However, this change did not take effect until 2019. We employ a difference-in- differences strategy on Utah counties using neighboring states as controls to test whether this policy change significantly affected the number of traffic accidents or the severity of those accidents. Results show the policy appears to temporarily decrease the total number of accidents, limited primarily to property damage-only accidents. We believe these results may be partially explained by drivers who, after the policy is enacted, avoid reporting property damage-only accidents if possible. Using insurance claims data, we show there is no corresponding fall in insurance claims or payouts suggesting that the fall in total accidents likely comes from under-reporting.
The effects of community-infused problem-oriented policing in crime hot spots based on police data: A randomized controlled trial
Bruce Taylor et al.
Journal of Experimental Criminology, June 2024, Pages 317-345
Methods: In two mid-Atlantic cities, a total of 102 crime hot spots were randomly assigned to receive CPOP or standard patrol. Analyses examine changes in crime the year before, during, and one year after the intervention. We used hierarchical Poisson regression models.
Results: We found no main effects for the CPOP intervention on property and violent crimes in either site. In site B, the violent crime count in low treatment hot spots was 200% higher than controls post-intervention but this likely reflected officers paying less attention to treatment locations with lower levels of crime.