IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/tpr/restat/v103y2021i2p280-293.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Police Presence, Rapid Response Rates, and Crime Prevention

Author

Listed:
  • Sarit Weisburd

    (Tel Aviv University)

Abstract

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Sarit Weisburd, 2021. "Police Presence, Rapid Response Rates, and Crime Prevention," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 103(2), pages 280-293, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:tpr:restat:v:103:y:2021:i:2:p:280-293
    DOI: 10.1162/rest_a_00889
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1162/rest_a_00889
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1162/rest_a_00889?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Drydakis, Nick, 2024. "Business Disruptions Due to Social Vulnerability and Criminal Activities in Urban Areas," IZA Discussion Papers 17321, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Wang-Sheng Lee & Umair Khalil & David Johnston, 2024. "Religiosity and Crime: Evidence from a City-Wide Shock," Papers 2024-08, Centre for Health Economics, Monash University.
    3. Casilda Lasso de la Vega & Oscar Volij & Federico Weinschelbaum, 2023. "When do more police induce more crime?," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 76(3), pages 759-778, October.
    4. Blesse, Sebastian & Diegmann, André, 2022. "The place-based effects of police stations on crime: Evidence from station closures," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 207(C).
    5. Chalfin, Aaron & Mitre-Becerril, David & Williams, Morgan C., 2024. "Does Proactive Policing Really Increase Major Crime? A Replication Study of Sullivan and O'Keeffe (Nature Human Behaviour, 2017)," Journal of Comments and Replications in Economics (JCRE), ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 3(2024-6), pages 1-34.
    6. LeRoy, William, 2024. "Understanding policing in the aftermath of gun violence: Examining investigatory stops and crime in Chicago," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 234(C).
    7. Cho, Sungwoo & Gonçalves, Felipe & Weisburst, Emily, 2021. "Do Police Make Too Many Arrests? The Effect of Enforcement Pullbacks on Crime," IZA Discussion Papers 14907, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Kang, Songman & Kim, Duol, 2022. "Focus vs. spread: Police box consolidation and its impact on crime in Korea," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    9. Boylan, Richard T., 2022. "Should cities disband their police departments?," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    10. Maghularia, Rita & Uebelmesser, Silke, 2023. "Do immigrants affect crime? Evidence for Germany," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 211(C), pages 486-512.
    11. Drydakis, Nick, 2024. "Business Disruptions Due to Social Vulnerability and Criminal Activities in Urban Areas," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1495, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    12. Federico Masera, 2022. "The economics of policing and crimeThe economics of policing and crime," Chapters, in: Paolo Buonanno & Paolo Vanin & Juan Vargas (ed.), A Modern Guide to the Economics of Crime, chapter 2, pages 12-29, Edward Elgar Publishing.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:tpr:restat:v:103:y:2021:i:2:p:280-293. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kelly McDougall (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://direct.mit.edu/journals .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.