Police Patrols and Crime

Jordi Blanes i Vidal and Giovanni Mastrobuoni

No 12266, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: An influential literature has used the aftermath of terrorist attacks to estimate large effects of police street deployment on crime. However, the elasticities obtained in these settings may not easily extrapolate to more standard circumstances. This paper exploits a natural experiment that aimed to increase police presence in more than 6,000 well-defined areas, by economically-realistic amounts and under relatively normal circumstances. Using data transmitted by GPS devices worn by police officers, we first document exogenous and discontinuous changes in patrolling intensity. We then find that the relation between crime and police patrolling is not statistically different from zero, and that the standard errors are small enough to reject relatively small elasticities. We discuss and empirically evaluate explanations for the apparent lack of deterrence.

Keywords: Police; Crime; Natural experiments; Deterrence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D29 K40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-law
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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