Violent Crime and the Overmilitarization of US Policing

Federico Masera ()

No 2019-03, Discussion Papers from School of Economics, The University of New South Wales

Abstract: Using new data at the police department level, I propose an identification strategy to estimate the causal effect that police militarization has on reducing violent crime. I show that previous estimates are likely to be contaminated by unobserved factors that simultaneously determine militarization and violent crime. Upon addressing this issue, I find an effect that is 20 times as large as previously estimated. I then find that one fourth of the effect of militarization is due to the displacement of violent crime to neighboring areas. Police departments overmilitarize because they do not consider this externality. These new findings have significant implications for the policy debate concerning the costs and benefits of police militarization.

Pages: 37 pages
Date: 2019-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-law, nep-pke and nep-ure
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Journal Article: Violent Crime and the Overmilitarization of US Policing (2021)
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