Police-Civilian Fatal Encounters and State Trust

Renata Canini, Felipe González and Mounu Prem

No 1745, GLO Discussion Paper Series from Global Labor Organization (GLO)

Abstract: We study how violent encounters between police and civilians shape citizens' trust in the state. We combine nearly 750,000 survey responses from seventeen Latin American countries with a new dataset of high-profile police-civilian fatalities. Exploiting the timing of these events relative to survey interviews, we provide causal evidence on their effects. Civilian deaths caused by police reduce trust in state institutions, while police-officer deaths caused by civilians increase it, with no effects on interpersonal trust. These effects arise only when events are covered by the media, indicating that information diffusion - rather than violence per se - drives changes in trust.

Keywords: state; police; trust; Latin America (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 D83 K42 O17 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-law and nep-soc
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:glodps:1745

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