State of Crime
Political diversity in U.S. police agencies
Bocar Ba et al.
American Journal of Political Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Partisans are divided on policing policy, which may affect officer behavior. We merge rosters from 99 of the 100 largest local U.S. agencies -- over one third of local law enforcement agents nationwide -- with voter files to study police partisanship. Police skew more Republican than their jurisdictions, with notable exceptions. Using fine-grained data in Chicago and Houston, we compare behavior of Democratic and Republican officers facing common circumstances. We find minimal partisan differences after correcting for multiple comparisons. But consistent with prior work, we find Black and Hispanic officers make fewer stops and arrests in Chicago, and Black officers use force less often in both cities. Comparing same-race partisans, we find White Democrats make more violent crime arrests than White Republicans in Chicago. Our results suggest that despite Republicans' preference for more punitive law enforcement policy and their overrepresentation in policing, partisan divisions often do not translate into detectable differences in on-the-ground enforcement.
The Punitive Public? Exploring the Opinion-Election Connection in Criminal Justice Policy
Arvind Krishnamurthy, Curtis Bram & Charles Nathan
American Politics Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
A long-standing line of research attributes criminal legal policy outcomes in America to policy attitudes held by the public. For these scholars, one possible mechanism driving this relationship is a punitive public electing punitive politicians. This article presents new evidence demonstrating that citizens’ criminal legal policy attitudes do not directly translate into their electoral choices. We use three conjoint experiments to demonstrate this disjunction. Our first two experiments demonstrate agreement about which classes of offenders are more deserving of release. This agreement generally holds for Democrats, Republicans, and respondents at all levels of racial resentment. However, when respondents were asked to choose between hypothetical legislative candidates promising to release these same classes of offenders, the consensus breaks down. In a hypothetical electoral context, partisan and racial resentment-based divisions intensify. These findings suggest that the translation between criminal legal policy attitudes and electoral preferences is not straightforward.
Eye in the Sky: Harnessing AI to Monitor Police Response to Illegal Parking Complaints
Benjamin Arnav & Elif Ensari
NYU Working Paper, October 2024
Abstract:
Illegal parking poses significant challenges in urban environments, obstructing travel lanes, increasing gridlock, and blocking access to critical infrastructure. This study aims to examine how the police respond to illegal parking complaints in New York City, offering a first-of-its-kind, systematic, large-scale analysis of law enforcement patterns, with significant policy implications. We used artificial intelligence and a network of publicly available camera feeds operated by the New York City Department of Transportation (DOT) to monitor and file complaints and subsequently track and assess enforcement efficacy. Over five days, 558 illegal parking complaints were generated across 21 cameras, with at least one in each of the city’s five boroughs. The New York Police Department (NYPD) closed 291 complaints (52.15%) while vehicles were still parked illegally, and reported issuing only 16 tickets (2.87%) during the observation period. Certain areas exhibited chronic illegal parking issues that persisted despite repeated complaints. Official resolutions often contradicted ground truth captured by DOT cameras, highlighting discrepancies in enforcement reporting. These findings empirically validate a phenomenon widely recognized anecdotally in New York City and strengthen the case for increased automated ticketing systems, greater police oversight and street designs that inherently discourage illegal parking.
Measuring criticism of the police in the local news media using large language models
Logan Crowl et al.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 4 March 2025
Abstract:
High-profile incidents of police violence against Black citizens over the past decade have spawned contentious debates in the United States on the role of police. This debate has played out prominently in the news media, leading to a perception that media outlets have become more critical of the police. There is currently, however, little empirical evidence supporting this perceived shift. We construct a large dataset of local news reporting on the police from 2013 to 2023 in 10 politically diverse U.S. cities. Leveraging advanced language models, we measure criticism by analyzing whether reporting supports or is critical of two contentions: 1) that the police protect citizens and 2) that the police are racist. To validate this approach, we collect labels from members of different political parties. We find that contrary to public perceptions, local media criticism of the police has remained relatively stable along these two dimensions over the past decade. While criticism spiked in the aftermath of high-profile police killings, such as George Floyd’s murder, these events did not produce sustained increases in negative police news. In fact, reporting supportive of police effectiveness has increased slightly since Floyd’s death. We find only small differences in coverage trends in more conservative and more liberal cities, undermining the idea that local outlets cater to the politics of their audiences. Last, although Republicans are more likely to view a piece of news as supportive of the police than Democrats, readers across parties see reporting as no more critical than it was a decade ago.
Housing Improvement and Crime
Umair Khalil & Viviane Sanfelice
Journal of Public Economics, February 2025
Abstract:
We evaluate a policy implemented in Chicago geared towards improving the private housing stock in distressed neighborhoods. First, the program successfully increased housing renovations and reduced foreclosures, demonstrating tangible housing improvements. Next, treated areas experienced significant reductions in burglaries and robberies, with adjacent neighborhoods also documenting similar decreases in crime. We do not find evidence that gentrification with displacement of incumbent residents is responsible for the positive impacts of the program. Our findings provide evidence of substantial neighborhood gains from low-cost, place-based housing interventions that prioritize the preservation of existing housing stock.
Anti-Black and Blue: Neighborhood Identity and Local Racial Ideologies in Chicago’s Police Neighborhoods
Anna Fox
Social Problems, forthcoming
Abstract:
This article explores the relationship between the places police live and their local racial dynamics. Using geospatial data to estimate where Chicago’s police officers live, I find that police reside in distinct enclaves. Then, drawing on interviews with members of 60 police households, I show how a coherent “police” identity is applied to these neighborhoods. These enclaves were identified as “police neighborhoods” with a strong police identity that all residents could share–unless they were Black. In these neighborhoods, non-Black officers and their spouses used interpersonal surveillance to stigmatize Black residents, using the neighborhood-level police identity to justify localized forms of anti-Black racial exclusion. Although non-officers could wield a police identity in these neighborhoods, Black CPD officers were excluded from it, describing themselves as potential targets of racist policing and violence. The neighborhood-level police identity reveals a direct relationship between police identities and anti-Black racism and incentivizes even those who are not officially police to maintain an anti-Black racial order in police neighborhoods. This study illuminates how everyday people are empowered by their investment in and relationship to policing to enact various forms of racism. The police identity can expand to non-police actors, legitimizing civilian vigilantism and facilitating racial violence.
Black Neighbors Matter: Officer Neighborhoods and Racial Differences in Policing
Gerard Domènech-Arumí
Vanderbilt University Working Paper, January 2025
Abstract:
Ten years of data from a large American city reveal that Black civilians are consistently overrepresented in police street interactions. I combine property registry data, voter files, and employee records to locate officers' exact addresses and study whether racial diversity in their neighborhoods impacts racial differences in policing. I find that White (unlike Black and Hispanic) officers are geographically clustered in a few (predominately White) neighborhoods. Those living in Black neighborhoods interact with fewer Blacks and are more productive in Black interactions (e.g., more likely to seize drugs during stops). White officers quasi-randomly exposed to a new next-door Black neighbor interact with relatively fewer Blacks and are more productive. Effects are larger among officers in White neighborhoods, with less experience, and with more affluent new neighbors. These findings suggest that segregation may amplify racial differences in policing.
Beyond the Ladder: The Effects of Limited Promotion Opportunities on Bureaucrats’ Career Decisions and Work Effort
Taeho Kim
ILR Review, March 2025, Pages 355-380
Abstract:
Public-sector organizations often struggle to provide sufficient promotion incentives, raising concerns that limited advancement opportunities may undermine worker morale and performance. This study examines how frontline bureaucrats’ effort levels and career decisions respond to restricted promotion opportunities. In the Chicago Police Department, strict eligibility criteria for promotion exams unexpectedly reduced promotion chances for some officers compared to otherwise similar officers. This reduction in managerial promotion opportunities led ineligible officers to significantly increase their effort levels, as measured by arrest performance. The increase in arrests cannot be attributed to selective quitting, problematic behavior, or efforts motivated by overtime pay or future promotion. Instead, these officers pursued roles in high-performance tactical teams, which offer prestige and are viewed as a meaningful horizontal alternative to managerial advancement. Together, these results suggest that bureaucrats facing limited promotion opportunities may seek alternative ways to advance their careers and enhance their efforts, highlighting the importance of offering diverse career development options within public-sector organizations.
“It's On All the Time in Our House:” Police Scanners and Everyday Rural Life
Michael Branch
Rural Sociology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Police radio scanners are a common feature of homes in rural Upstate New York, but little attention has been given to how their use affects local communities. Drawing on in-depth interviews with residents of a small town in the Adirondack Park, I examine how the scanner becomes a key factor in structuring experiences of daily life. A common feature of rural communities, the scanner positions policing at the center of everyday life, shapes perceptions of criminality and policing for those listening, and may have significant consequences for vulnerable residents. The scanner provides residents with the opportunity to develop informal networks of care, yet simultaneously limits the ability of some residents to access community and emergency services. I argue that the scanner comes to mediate contradictory structures for the town and blends police power and presence with the experience of everyday rural social life as part of broader processes that delineate, justify, and legitimize boundaries of social difference. Bridging scholarship on rural communities and police technology, this project advances a framework to understand how the scanner shapes and structures access to symbolic capital vis-a-vis the state and logics of policing in the name of community safety.
Can Enhanced Street Lighting Improve Public Safety at Scale?
John Macdonald et al.
University of Pennsylvania Working Paper, February 2025
Abstract:
Street lighting is often believed to influence street crime, but most prior studies have examined small-scale interventions in limited areas. The effect of large-scale lighting enhancements on public safety remains uncertain. This study evaluates the impact of Philadelphia’s citywide rollout of enhanced street lighting, which began in August 2023. Over 10 months, 34,374 streetlights were upgraded across 13,275 street segments, converting roughly one-third of the city's street segments to new LED fixtures that provide clearer and more even illumination. We assess the effect of these upgrades on total crime, violent crime, property crime, and nuisance crime. Results show a 15% decline in outdoor nighttime street crimes and a 21% reduction in outdoor nighttime gun violence following the streetlight upgrades. The upgrades may account for approximately 5% of the citywide reduction in gun violence during this period, or about one sixth of the 31% citywide decline. Qualitative data further suggests that residents' perceptions of safety and neighborhood vitality improved following the installation of new streetlights. Our study demonstrates that large-scale streetlight upgrades can lead to significant reductions in crime rates across urban areas, supporting the use of energy-efficient LED lighting as a crime reduction strategy. These findings suggest that other cities should consider similar lighting interventions as part of their crime prevention efforts. Further research is needed to explore the impact of enhanced streetlight interventions on other types of crime and to determine whether the crime-reduction benefits are sustained when these upgrades are implemented across the entire City of Philadelphia for extended periods.
The mobilizing effects of California's Proposition 47 on high incarceration communities
Arvind Krishnamurthy
Political Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Existing research provides conflicting accounts of whether indirect exposure to the American carceral state mobilizes geographically proximate community voters. One possible reason for these mixed findings may be a missing connection between electoral participation and expectations of change in criminal legal policies. To remedy this problem, I leverage the inclusion of a well-publicized ballot initiative in California, Proposition 47. The 2014 measure would substantially reduce the incarcerated population in the state and lower sanctions for non-violent criminal offenses. Using census tract-level vote returns and incarceration rates, I show that increasing levels of tract incarceration are associated with an increase in turnout during the year of Proposition 47 (3.8 to 6.9 pp) relative to past turnout levels. In addition, I show that higher tract incarceration rates are associated with more support for the Proposition (6.9 pp. difference). These results suggest that carceral state exposure may affect community political engagement differently based on the direct policy relevance of a given election for changing carceral state functioning.
How policing incentives affect crime, measurement, and justice
Jordan Adamson & Lucas Rentschler
Economic Inquiry, forthcoming
Abstract:
In this paper we develop a model where the police choose between investigating and patrolling, while civilians choose between producing and stealing. We derive a truth table for the equilibrium numbers of criminals and producers, punished or not, that can holistically evaluate the effects of police performance incentives. To test the model, we conduct an experiment that varies how severely an officer is reprimanded for false punishments. We find that stronger reprimands do not change crime, increase civilian incomes, and decrease false positives. We also find that the clearance rate, a measure of performance used widely in econometric studies, suggests police performance is better when it is unambiguously worse.