Police Force Size and Civilian Race

Aaron Chalfin, Benjamin Hansen, Emily K. Weisburst and Morgan C. Williams, Jr.

No 28202, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We report the first empirical estimate of the race-specific effects of larger police forces in the United States. Each additional police officer abates approximately 0.1 homicides. In per capita terms, effects are twice as large for Black versus white victims. At the same time, larger police forces make more arrests for low-level “quality-of-life” offenses, with effects that imply a disproportionate burden for Black Americans. Notably, cities with large Black populations do not share equally in the benefits of investments in police manpower. Our results provide novel empirical support for the popular narrative that Black communities are simultaneously over and under-policed.

JEL-codes: H72 J15 J18 K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ure
Note: LE LS PE
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Published as Aaron Chalfin & Benjamin Hansen & Emily K. Weisburst & Morgan C. Williams, 2022. "Police Force Size and Civilian Race," American Economic Review: Insights, vol 4(2), pages 139-158.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w28202.pdf (application/pdf)

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:nbr:nberwo:28202

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w28202

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().