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The Impact of Fear on Police Behavior and Public Safety

Sung‐Woo Cho¹; Felipe Goncalves²; Emily Weisburst³

¹ United States Military Academy at West Point [email protected] · ² UCLA and NBER [email protected] · ³ UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs and NBER [email protected]

Abstract We examine how changes in the salience of workplace risk affect police behavior and public safety. Specifically, we investigate cases of police officer deaths while on duty. Officers respond to a peer death by decreasing arrest activity for one to two months, consistent with heightened fear. Reductions are largest for low-level arrests and are more pronounced in smaller cities. Crime does not increase on average during this period, nor do we observe crime spikes in cities with larger or longer arrest declines. While shocks to perceived fatality risk generate substantial enforcement responses, officer fear is unlikely to harm public safety.

DOI

10.1162/rest_a_01545

Pages

1-45

Language

en

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