Read on Twitter
New from @ajc730, Hansen, Weisburst, and Williams: added police cut major crimes, including homicides, with blacks seeing larger effects. They also lead to an increase in the number of "quality of life" arrests.
https://www.nber.org/papers/w28202
https://www.nber.org/papers/w28202
"While arrests for 'quality of life' offenses have the potential to accumulate, and may have criminogenic effects either though jail sentences or peer effects," 1/
"the results imply that larger police forces are unlikely to be an important driver of lengthy prison sentences or mass incarceration, for both Black and white civilians."2/2
Interestingly, "the marginal effects of police employment differ substantially across cities with different racial compositions," i.e. cities with a higher % black pop. see smaller or no effects on crime for black residents, and larger increases in QOL arrests.
+1 cop yields "between 3 and 6 use of force incidents per life saved" from homicide. This "likely translate[s] to a difference in salience; individuals are more likely to observe arrest increases that result from" more cops "than homicide increases that might result from" fewer
This ofc. is one of the key problems for police PR — the public doesn't see crimes that *don't* happen, but they do see misconduct that *does* happen.
