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Marriott Marquis, Cardiff
Hosted By:
National Economic Association
Crime, Race, and Public Policy
Paper Session
Sunday, Jan. 5, 2020 10:15 AM - 12:15 PM (PDT)
- Chair: Miesha Williams, Morehouse College
Racial Divisions and Criminal Justice: Evidence from Southern State Courts
Abstract
The US criminal justice system is exceptionally punitive. We test whether racial heterogeneity is one cause, exploiting cross-jurisdiction variation in punishment in four Southern states. We estimate the causal effect of jurisdiction on arrest charge outcome, validating our estimates using a quasi-experimental research design based on defendants charged in multiple jurisdictions. Consistent with a model of ingroup bias in electorate preferences, the relationship between local punishment severity and black population share follows an inverted U-shape. Within states, defendants are 27%-54% more likely to be sentenced to incarceration in `peak' heterogeneous jurisdictions than in homogeneous jurisdictions.Network Effects in Police Use of Force
Abstract
We examine network effects in police force by officers who, through a random lottery, attended the police academy together in Chicago. On-duty injuries cause peers to substantially increase the use of force, resulting in more civilian injuries. Conversely, the increased force use does not lead to a significant decrease in officer injuries. Our results suggest that policies aiming to reduce the use of force must consider the effects on officer safety. Increasing the risk to officers will increase force use both directly and through their peer group. Policies that reduce the risks to officers may also reduce the risk to suspects.Racial Congruence in Police Use of Force and Arrest Encounters
Abstract
A significant amount of attention has been refocused on the relationship between officer use of force and communities of color due to the recent killings of unarmed Blacks across the United States. To understand the impact of race and police use of force more meticulously, this paper applies the theory of representative bureaucracy to investigate differences in the amount of force used by Black and White officers and test the link between passive (descriptive) and active (substantive) representation. Research on representative bureaucracy has examined the extent to which a civilian’s race affects an officer’s decisions, but few studies consider the level of force that officers use or whether an arrest is made. The salience of racial matches depends on contextual factors, such as the interaction between race and the presence of a weapon, that existing scholarship may not account for sufficiently. Using individual-level data to estimate this impact, we find that White officers are more likely to use severe force on Black (as opposed to White) civilians and that both Black and White officers are more likely to use severe force and make an arrest with weapon presence. Yet, when Black civilians have a weapon, Black (as compared to White) officers are more likely to use severe force, but less likely to make an arrest. This study suggests that biases among both Black and White officers may exist.Household Responses to the Escalation of Violent Crime in Mexico
Abstract
We are interested in understanding how violence has affected the way in which ordinary individuals live their lives. For example, in places where violence is pervasive, citizens may change their habits and their spending patterns. Risk averse residents may no longer frequent restaurants and bars, fearing kidnapping or crossfire. Additionally, citizens may stop wearing jewelry and refrain from purchasing fancy cars, fearful of attracting the wrong kind of attention. In this paper, we use detailed household data the Mexican Family Life Survey Panel and a nationwide database on homicides to examine whether there is a significant relationship between levels of violence and two measures of household response - patterns of conspicuous consumption and behavioral changes in from 2002 to 2012 in Mexico. We measure changes in visible consumption using standard measures of conspicuous spending including the among spent on commodities like vehicles, entertainment, gambling, and clothing. We measure changes of behavior using a set of survey questions over whether people have changed how often they eat out, carry valuables, change modes of transportation (or routes) for security reasons. We find that as violence rises within a municipality, households spend significantly less on visible forms of consumption. We also find that violence is most strongly associated with changes in conspicuous consumption for middle- and upper-income groups. We show that households change their routes of transportation when homicides are increasing. This effect is even stronger for female headed households and for low-income households.Campus Carry Laws on Campus Violence
Abstract
While federal funding of gun violence research was limited during the past twenty-five years, there was a robust literature that sought to answer the question of what sort of policy could limit gun violence. The advent of new methods for causal inference and state level policy reforms like child access prevention laws and background checks provided avenues for promising analysis. RAND put out a comprehensive synthesis of the research evidence on firearm violence in 2018. They find support for CAP laws and background checks reduce gun suicides and homicides, and in certain cases can reduce violent crime rates. There is less consensus of the impact of outright bans and other limitations on firearm purchases. To our knowledge there has not been any systematic analysis of campus carry laws on campus crime as the adoption of campus carry laws are relatively new. For this study, we use a novel methodology that provides strong causal inference on the effect of campus carry laws on crime rates on university campuses. Our results find ambiguous effects of campus carry laws on campus crime.Discussant(s)
Scott Cunningham
,
Baylor University
Marcus Casey
,
University of Illinois-Chicago
Damon Jones
,
University of Chicago
Jhacova Williams
,
Clemson University
Luisa Blanco
,
Pepperdine University
JEL Classifications
- K4 - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior