Can Sanctuary Policies Reduce Domestic Violence?

Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes and Monica Deza

American Law and Economics Review, 2022, vol. 24, issue 1, 116-170

Abstract: Domestic violence remains a serious public problem, especially in Hispanic communities, where one in three women are victims of domestic violence in their lifetimes. Yet 50 of victims report the incidents, often because of concerns over police officers asking about their immigration status of the status of their family members. We assess the extent to which the implementation of sanctuary policies, which limit the cooperation of local law enforcement with federal immigration authorities, affect domestic homicide rates—a crime rarely unreported. We find that sanctuary policies reduce domestic homicides with a Hispanic female victim, especially in counties with more female officers. In contrast, the effect is smaller in magnitude in counties with mandatory arrest laws for domestic violence already in place. Overall, the results are suggestive of the protective role of sanctuary policies in Hispanic communities.

Keywords: D1; I1; J1; K14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/aler/ahab014 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:amlawe:v:24:y:2022:i:1:p:116-170.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

American Law and Economics Review is currently edited by J.J. Prescott and Albert Choi

More articles in American Law and Economics Review from American Law and Economics Association Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().