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The Effect of Police on Crime: New Evidence from U.S. Cities, 1960-2010 ∗ (2012)
| Citations: | 4 - 0 self |
BibTeX
@MISC{Chalfin12theeffect,
author = {Aaron Chalfin and Justin Mccrary},
title = {The Effect of Police on Crime: New Evidence from U.S. Cities, 1960-2010 ∗},
year = {2012}
}
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Abstract
Using a new panel data set on crime in medium to large U.S. cities over 1960-2010, we show that (1) year-over-year changes in police per capita are largely idiosyncratic to demographic factors, the local economy, city budgets, measures of social disorganization, and recent changes in crime rates, (2) year-over-year changes in police per capita are mismeasured, leading many estimates in the literature to be too small by a factor of 5, and (3) after correcting for measurement error bias and controlling for population growth, a regression of within-state differences in year-over-year changes in city crimes on within-state differences in year-over-year changes in police yields economically large point estimates. Our estimates are generally similar in magnitude to, but are estimated with a great deal more precision than, those from the quasi-experimental literature. Our estimates imply that each dollar spent on police is associated with approximately $1.60 in reduced victimization costs, suggesting that U.S. cities employ too few police. The estimates confirm a controversial finding from the previous literature that police reduce violent crime more so than property crime.
Keyphrases
year-over-year change u.s. city new evidence within-state difference many estimate controversial finding previous literature crime rate property crime large point estimate local economy demographic factor reduced victimization cost city crime population growth great deal violent crime measurement error bias police yield city budget new panel data social disorganization quasi-experimental literature recent change large u.s. city
