Behavioral public choice and policing in America (original) (raw)
Related papers
Do Cops Know Who to Stop? Assessing Optimizing Models of Police Behavior with a Natural Experiment
SSRN Electronic Journal
The standard economic model of police stops implies that the contraband hit rate should rise when the number of stops falls, ceteris paribus. We provide empirical corroboration of such optimizing models of police behavior by examining changes in stops and frisks around two extraordinary events of 2020-the pandemic onset and the nationwide protests following the killing of George Floyd. We find that hit rates from pedestrian and vehicle stops generally rose as stops and frisks fell dramatically. Using detailed data, we are able to rule out a number of alternative explanations, including changes in street population, crime, police allocation, and policing intensity. We find mixed evidence about the changes in racial disparities, and evidence that police stops do not decrease crime, at least in the short run. The results are robust to a number of different specifications. Our findings provide quantitative estimates that can contribute to the important goals of improving and reforming policing.
De-Policing in America: The Effects Discretionary Enforcement
Proving the existence of the Ferguson Effect has been elusive and the center of national debate. Generally, the theory defines some form of de-policing correlated with a rise in crime. While the controversy continues in specifically correlating these two points, there exists significant academic, statistical, and anecdotal evidence showing crime is increasing while discretionary policing has been reduced in some areas. The current study accepts the existence and relevancy of de-policing and believes the urgent question is not one of strict correlation between crime and arrest rates but, rather, why a de-policing trend exists. The current study derives the answer from front-line law enforcement officers responsible for proactive discretionary policing. The results, along with substantive literature on the topic, provide a clear representation of the effects of negative media and leadership influence on police discretionary activity nationally.
The Police Officer's Dilemma: A Decade of Research on Racial Bias in the Decision to Shoot
Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 2014
We review sociological, correlational, and experimental research that examines the effect of a target's race on the decision to shoot. Much of this work involves computer-based simulations of a police encounter, in which a participant must decide whether or not to shoot a potentially hostile target who is either Black or White. Experimental work with undergraduate participants reveals a clear pattern of bias (a tendency to shoot Black targets but not Whites), which is associated with stereotypes linking Blacks with the concept of danger. Subsequent work with police officers presents a more complex pattern. Although police are affected by target race in some respects, they generally do not show a biased pattern of shooting. We suggest that police performance depends on the exercise of cognitive control, which allows officers to overcome the influence of stereotypes, and we conclude with potential implications of this research for law enforcement.
How Endogenous System Bias Can Distort Decision-Making in Criminal Justice Systems
Social Justice Research
Most judicial, regulatory, and administrative systems, at least formally, are concerned with the fairness and transparency of their decisions concerning the public. Fairness and transparency of criminal justice operations are critical to creating trust in the legal system and assuring people that the larger social system is legitimate and worthy of support. However, deviations from objective and fair decision-making can be concealed when key actors who are responsible for deciding outcomes in their organizations are also responsible for collecting, assembling, evaluating, and presenting the information on which their decisions are based. Under these conditions such systems are at risk of what we term “endogenous system bias,” where data are acquired and altered in ways to justify desired outcomes that are neither fair nor transparent. The purpose of this paper is to: (1) develop a general model of decision-making constraints that can produce endogenous system bias, (2) review resear...
Searching for Efficient Enforcement: Officer Characteristics and Racially Biased Policing
Review of Law & Economics, 2007
This study empirically investigates whether racial and ethnic differences in police searches of stopped drivers reflect efficient enforcement or biased policing. Null hypotheses consistent with efficient enforcement are derived from alternative assumptions regarding police objectives: 1) police seek to maximize public safety, and 2) police seek to maximize the hit rate. We use both an outcomes-based non-parametric analysis and a standard benchmarking parametric approach (regression analysis). Both approaches yield the same results: law enforcement officers display both personal and police cultural bias in their propensity to search African American and Latino drivers. African American and Latino status tends to lower the guilt signal required for police suspicion. Further, white officers police differently than their African American and Latino colleagues. White officers are 73 percent of the sworn police force, conduct 88 percent of the searches, and have a hit rate of 20 percent. Latino officers are 11 percent of the sworn labor force, conduct 8 percent of the searches, and have a hit rate of 24 percent. African American officers are 15 percent of the sworn labor force, conduct 4 percent of the searches, and have a hit rate of 26 percent. The preferential treatment of white drivers by police is attenuated with increases in the fraction of racial and ethnic minority residents in the county where the stop occurred.
Explaining Police Bias: A Theory of Social Conditioning and Illusory Correlation
Criminal Justice and Behavior, 2007
Although recent empirical research has shown that Blacks and Hispanics are consistently overrepresented among police stops, searches, and arrests, few criminologists have attempted to provide a theoretical explanation for the disparities reported in the research literature. This article proposes a theory of individual police behavior that is grounded in social— psychological research on stereotype formation and that assumes a nonmotivational but biased response to minority citizens by the police. Accordingly, stereotype formation and its consequences are largely unintentional and are driven by social conditioning and the illusory correlation phenomenon, which results in the overestimation of negative behaviors associated with minority group members. After specifying the theory, the article presents a research agenda for empirically testing and verifying its propositions.
Across the Thin Blue Line: Police Officers and Racial Bias in the Decision to Shoot
Police officers were compared with community members in terms of the speed and accuracy with which they made simulated decisions to shoot (or not shoot) Black and White targets. Both samples exhibited robust racial bias in response speed. Officers outperformed community members on a number of measures, including overall speed and accuracy. Moreover, although community respondents set the decision criterion lower for Black targets than for White targets (indicating bias), police officers did not. The authors suggest that training may not affect the speed with which stereotype-incongruent targets are processed but that it does affect the ultimate decision (particularly the placement of the decision criterion). Findings from a study in which a college sample received training support this conclusion.
2016
Police officers who are actively engaged with the public can reduce crime through general deterrence and by arresting criminals. At the same time, excessive arrests and the use of force by officers can reduce public trust in the integrity of the police. To date, there is scant evidence as to how police departments can successfully train officers to balance these two goals in the field. Drawing on psychology and economics, we developed a low-cost, on-the-job training program intended to encourage officers to “slow down” their thought process during citizen encounters and engage in behaviors consistent with procedural justice. After randomly assigning a select group of officers to training, we find that those who participated in training were as engaged in the community as similarly situated officers, but were less likely to resolve incidents with an arrest and were less likely to be involved in incidents where force was used. These changes were most evident among officers who worked ...