Panic on the Streets of London: Police, Crime and the July 2005 Terror Attacks

53 Pages Posted: 23 May 2008

See all articles by Mirko Draca

Mirko Draca

London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) - Centre for Economic Performance (CEP); Harvard University - Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics; University of Warwick - Department of Economics

Stephen J. Machin

London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) - Centre for Economic Performance (CEP); London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) - Department of Economics

Robert Witt

University of Surrey

Abstract

In this paper we study the causal impact of police on crime by looking at what happened to crime before and after the terror attacks that hit central London in July 2005. The attacks resulted in a large redeployment of police officers to central London boroughs as compared to outer London - in fact, police deployment in central London increased by over 30 percent in the six weeks following the July 7 bombings. During this time crime fell significantly in central relative to outer London. Study of the timing of the crime reductions and their magnitude, the types of crime which were more likely to be affected and a series of robustness tests looking at possible biases all make us confident that our research approach identifies a causal impact of police on crime. Implementing an instrumental variable approach shows an elasticity of crime with respect to police of approximately -0.3, so that a 10 percent increase in police activity reduces crime by around 3 percent.

Keywords: crime, police, terror attacks

JEL Classification: H00, H5, K42

Suggested Citation

Draca, Mirko and Machin, Stephen J. and Witt, Robert, Panic on the Streets of London: Police, Crime and the July 2005 Terror Attacks. IZA Working Paper No. 3410, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1136215 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1136215

Mirko Draca (Contact Author)

London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) - Centre for Economic Performance (CEP) ( email )

Houghton Street
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Harvard University - Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics ( email )

124 Mount Auburn Street
Suite 520N
Cambridge, MA 02138
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University of Warwick - Department of Economics ( email )

Coventry CV4 7AL
United Kingdom

Stephen J. Machin

London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) - Centre for Economic Performance (CEP) ( email )

Houghton Street
London WC2A 2AE
United Kingdom

London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) - Department of Economics ( email )

Houghton Street
London WC2A 2AE
United Kingdom

Robert Witt

University of Surrey ( email )

Guildford
Guildford, Surrey GU2 5XH
United Kingdom

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