Hot Spots
Smartphone Data Reveal Neighborhood-Level Racial Disparities in Police Presence
Keith Chen et al.
Review of Economics and Statistics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Research on policing has focused on documented actions such as stops and arrests -- less is known about patrols and presence. We map the neighborhood movement of nearly ten thousand officers across 21 of America's largest cities using anonymized smartphone data. Police spend 0.36% more time in neighborhoods for each percentage point increase in Black residents. This neighborhood-level disparity persists after controlling for density, socioeconomic, and crime-driven demand for policing, and may be lower in cities with more Black police supervisors (but not officers). Patterns of police presence statistically explain 57% of the higher arrest rate in more Black neighborhoods.
Turnover in large US policing agencies following the George Floyd protests
Ian Adams, Scott Mourtgos & Justin Nix
Journal of Criminal Justice, September-October 2023
Abstract:
We examine whether police resignations and retirements significantly changed in the two years following public backlash related to the police murder of George Floyd. We employ Bayesian Structural Time Series to compare observed trends in each agency to synthetic counterfactuals using monthly staffing data from fourteen large municipal policing and sheriffs' agencies in the US. In the two years since the Floyd protests began, large metropolitan agencies have experienced significant increases in resignations, retirements, or both. One agency was unaffected, two saw small improvements, and eleven saw between 2.2% and 16% excess loss of sworn full-time personnel when compared to the synthetic counterfactual. These results reaffirm the importance of understanding how agency operational and personnel patterns have shifted since the summer of 2020.
Trends and Sources of Crime Guns in California: 2010-2021
Hannah Laqueur et al.
Journal of Urban Health, October 2023, Pages 879-891
Abstract:
Firearm-related interpersonal violence is a leading cause of death and injury in cities across the United States, and understanding the movement of firearms from on-the-books sales to criminal end-user is critical to the formulation of gun violence prevention policy. In this study, we assemble a unique dataset that combines records for over 380,000 crime guns recovered by law enforcement in California (2010-2021), and more than 126,000 guns reported stolen, linked to in-state legal handgun transactions (1996-2021), to describe local and statewide crime gun trends and investigate several potentially important sources of guns to criminals, including privately manufactured firearms (PMFs), theft, and "dirty" dealers. We document a dramatic increase over the decade in firearms recovered shortly after purchase (7% were recovered within a year in 2010, up to 33% in 2021). This corresponds with a substantial rise in handgun purchasing over the decade, suggesting some fraction of newly and legally acquired firearms are likely diverted from the legal market for criminal use. We document the rapid growth of PMFs over the past 2-3 years and find theft plays some, though possibly diminishing, role as a crime gun source. Finally, we find evidence that some retailers contribute disproportionately to the supply of crime guns, though there appear to be fewer problematic dealers now than there were a decade ago. Overall, our study points to temporal shifts in the dynamics of criminal firearms commerce as well as significant city variation in the channels by which criminals acquire crime guns.
Long-Term Health and Economic Consequences Associated with Being Processed Through the Criminal Justice System for Males
Dzhansarayeva Rima et al.
American Journal of Criminal Justice, October 2023, Pages 1063-1079
Abstract:
There has been a great deal of scholarship examining the outcomes associated with being processed through the criminal justice system. Much of this research has focused on legal outcomes, such as recidivism, but research has also centered on extralegal outcomes, including measures of health and economics. The current study added to this body of research by examining whether contact with the criminal justice system (i.e., arrest, conviction, and incarceration) was associated with health problems, suicidal ideation, economic disadvantage, and poverty in adulthood for males. The analyses controlled for preexisting criminogenic measures (e.g., low self-control, delinquent peers, neighborhood disadvantage) and for adolescent delinquent involvement. Data drawn from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) were analyzed. The results revealed that all of the criminal justice system measures were statistically significant predictors of the health and economic outcomes even after accounting for preexisting criminogenic traits and delinquent behavior.
Variation in racial disparities in police use of force
Carl Lieberman
Journal of Urban Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
I examine how racial disparities in police use of force vary using new data covering every municipal police department in New Jersey. Along the intensive margin of force severity, I find disparities that disfavor Black subjects and are larger at higher force levels, even after adjusting for incident-level factors and using new techniques to address selection bias. I then extend empirical Bayes methods to estimate department-specific racial disparities and observe significant differences across and within these hundreds of departments. My findings suggest that ignoring heterogeneity in police use of force misrepresents the problem and masks the existence of both departments with very large disparities and those without apparent disparities against Black civilians, but the variation even within departments may make identifying and treating inequitable policing difficult.
Racially Disparate Policy Responses to Mass Shootings
Agustin Markarian
Political Research Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
This study examines the differential impact of mass shootings on state gun policy restrictions and posits that victims' race and ethnicity plays a pivotal role. Since the 1970s, pro-gun movements have exploited latent racial biases to oppose gun control measures. They frame gun control as prioritizing the protection of racial minorities over the rights and safety of White Americans, creating political resistance. However, when mass shootings affect White communities, perceptions of the primary beneficiaries of gun control temporarily change. Utilizing a 30-year state panel dataset, the study demonstrates that ten White mass shooting fatalities lead to approximately 1-1.5 restrictive state firearm laws on average, while the same number of fatalities among racial and ethnic minorities has a negative but inconsistent effect on state gun restrictions. These findings are robust to a wide range of modeling specifications and when controlling for other victim-level demographic characteristics. Empirical evidence suggests that legislators and gun control interest groups display stronger support for restrictive legislation following mass shootings involving White victims but not racial and ethnic minority victims.
The civilian's dilemma: Civilians exhibit automatic defensive responses to the police
Vincenzo Olivett & David March
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Interactions between police officers and civilians incur for both police and civilians the possibility of danger due to a nonzero likelihood of encountering a physical threat. A body of work examining the implications of threat processes during police-civilian interactions focuses almost exclusively on the perspective of police officers, under the auspice that police use-of-force decisions stem from perceptions and misperceptions of threat (e.g., research on the shooter bias). Almost no research has examined these dynamics from the perspective of civilians whose encounter with police involves interacting with an armed and potentially dangerous individual. In the current work, we advance the idea that just as police may respond to civilians as threats, civilians may respond to the police as threats. That is, among civilians, encountering the police may evoke a combination of defensive bodily and behavioral responses. Across three studies (N = 603) each utilizing unique measures of defensive behavioral and physiological responding, we found that people more rapidly avoid police than nonpolice, demonstrate enhanced defensive freeze responses to police than nonpolice, and evince larger defensive physiological preparation toward police than nonpolice. In light of these patterns, we discuss the implications of defensive responses for shaping civilian behavior in real-world encounters with the police.
Juvenile Crime and Anticipated Punishment
Ashna Arora
American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, November 2023, Pages 522-550
Abstract:
Can sanctions deter juvenile crime? Research indicates that they may not, as offending barely decreases when individuals cross the age of criminal majority and begin to face harsher sanctions. Several models of criminal behavior predict, however, that these small reactions close to the threshold may mask larger behavioral responses among individuals below the age threshold. Policy variation between 2007-2015 in the United States is used to show evidence consistent with these predictions -- juvenile crime increases when the age of majority is increased. This increase is driven by younger age groups and is considerably larger than discontinuity estimates at the threshold.
Can body-worn cameras reduce injuries during response-to-resistance events in a jail setting? Results from a randomized controlled trial
Daniel Lawrence et al.
Journal of Criminal Justice, September-October 2023
Methods: One-year randomized controlled trial among 12 housing units in the Loudoun County Adult Detention Center in Virginia. Negative binomial regression investigated the effects of BWCs on jail resident injuries during RTRs, and logistic regression predicted whether RTRs result in an injury.
Results: A 58% reduction in predicted injuries in unit-months where jail deputies were assigned BWCs, corresponding to an average of 0.17 resident injuries in unit-months without cameras and 0.07 injuries in unit-months with cameras. BWCs also reduced the likelihood of injury occurring by a factor of 0.12 (injuries occurred in 28.4% of RTRs without BWCs, versus 8.8% of RTRs with BWCs).
Disparities in Segregation for Prison Control: Comparing Long Term Solitary Confinement to Short Term Disciplinary Restrictive Housing
John Wooldredge et al.
Justice Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Following a recent study of disparities in solitary confinement (SC) placements in Florida, we examined related disparities in the use of extended restrictive housing in Ohio (SC conditions) while expanding the analysis to short term restrictive housing, a substantially more common prison experience. Analyses of 183,872 incarcerated persons (IPs) revealed substantive disparities in prevalence and incidence of placements in both short- and long-term restrictive housing (RH). Controlling for types of rule violations and other risk indicators, disparities emerged based on an IP's sex, age, race, education, learning skills, substance abuse risk, and mental health. Many findings are consistent with the Florida study and extend to the more routine short term RH. Similar studies will be critical for generating a body of knowledge that may demonstrate the same types and levels of RH disparities regardless of prison system, contributing greatly to RH policy debates and critical criminological perspectives.