The Impact of Race on Policing, Arrest Patterns, and Crime

63 Pages Posted: 21 Mar 2000

See all articles by John J. Donohue

John J. Donohue

Stanford Law School; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Steven D. Levitt

University of Chicago; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); American Bar Foundation

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: November 1998

Abstract

Race has long been recognized as playing a critical role in policing. In spite of this awareness, there has been virtually no previous research attempting to quantitatively analyze the issue. In this paper, we examine the relationship between the racial composition of a city's police force and the racial patterns of arrests and crime. Increases in the number of minority police are associated with significant increases in arrests of whites, but have little impact on arrests of non-whites. Similarly, more white police increase the number of arrests of non-whites, but do not systematically affect the number of white arrests. The race of police officers has a less clear-cut impact on crime rates. It appears that own-race policing may be more effective in reducing property crime, but no systematic differences are observed for violent crime. These results are consistent either with own-race policing leading to fewer false arrests or greater deterrence. In either case, own-race policing appears more "efficient" in fighting property crime.

JEL Classification: K42, J78

Suggested Citation

Donohue, John J. and Levitt, Steven D., The Impact of Race on Policing, Arrest Patterns, and Crime (November 1998). Stanford Law School, John M. Olin Program in Law and Economics, Working Paper No. 168, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=218908 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.218908

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Steven D. Levitt

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