TY - JOUR
T1 - Police presence, rapid response rates, and crime prevention
AU - Weisburd, Sarit
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
PY - 2021/5/14
Y1 - 2021/5/14
N2 - This paper estimates the impact of police presence on crime using a unique database that tracks the exact location of Dallas Police Department patrol cars throughout 2009. To address the concern that officer location is often driven by crime, my instrument exploits police responses to calls outside their allocated coverage beat. This variable provides a plausible shift in police presence within the abandoned beat that is driven by the police goal of minimizing response times. I find that a 10% decrease in police presence at that location results in a 7% increase in crime. This result sheds light on the black box of policing and crime and suggests that routine changes in police patrol can have a significant impact on criminal behavior.
AB - This paper estimates the impact of police presence on crime using a unique database that tracks the exact location of Dallas Police Department patrol cars throughout 2009. To address the concern that officer location is often driven by crime, my instrument exploits police responses to calls outside their allocated coverage beat. This variable provides a plausible shift in police presence within the abandoned beat that is driven by the police goal of minimizing response times. I find that a 10% decrease in police presence at that location results in a 7% increase in crime. This result sheds light on the black box of policing and crime and suggests that routine changes in police patrol can have a significant impact on criminal behavior.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85110601814&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1162/rest_a_00889
DO - 10.1162/rest_a_00889
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AN - SCOPUS:85110601814
SN - 0034-6535
VL - 103
SP - 280
EP - 293
JO - Review of Economics and Statistics
JF - Review of Economics and Statistics
IS - 2
ER -