Action or Distraction? Assessing the Impact of Post-2020 Police Use of Force Reforms in American Cities
by Vineet Chovatia
Abstract
Between 2013 and 2024, police killed 13,468 people in the United States. Low-income communities of color, who are disproportionately targeted, bear the brunt of this violence. This reality reflects a legacy rooted in a deeply racist history that continues to shape American policing today. In the wake of regular, highly-publicized killings of unarmed Black and Brown Americans and large-scale social movements advocating for police reform, police departments in many American cities implemented a range of reforms over the course of the 21st century. We use data on the adoption of seven of these reforms along with police shootings and killings data from 94 of America’s largest cities to construct fixed effects difference in differences models that estimate the effect of these policies individually and in combination on police shootings and killings. Our findings suggest that chokehold bans, de-escalation policies, and comprehensive reporting reforms are associated with reductions in police shootings when implemented together while findings with regards to police killings are more mixed, but indicate that combinations of these policies are associated with reductions in killings as well.
Professor Michelle P. Connolly, Faculty Advisor
JEL Codes: C23, K42, K14
Keywords: Police Use of Force; Fixed Effect Difference in Differences; Post-2020 Police Reforms
A Two-Stage Analysis Considering Gun Theft & Overall Crime: Evidence from Child Access Prevention Laws
by Ronan Brew
Abstract
Child Access Prevention Laws (CAP) came to prominence in the early 1990s in the wake of the highest
recorded rate of overall and adolescent firearm deaths seen in the United States at that time, placing
mandatory firearm storage requirements on adults living in a home with children. While the primary – and
perhaps sole – intention behind these policies are to prevent adolescent gun death, I contend CAP laws have
the added function of reducing the rate of firearms stolen from homes due to the legal incentives against
improper firearm storage. In the first of a two-stage analysis, CAP laws are proven to substantially reduce
the rate of household firearm theft based on the ascending stringency of different CAP law storage
requirements. The scope of the study is then widened in the second stage of analysis, where I demonstrate
the overall impact illicitly-obtained firearms have on predicting increased firearm homicides.
Professor John DeSimone, Faculty Advisor
JEL Codes: C23, K00, K42
The Impact of Violence in Mexico on Education and Labor Outcomes: Do Conditional Cash Transfers Have a Mitigating Effect?
By Hayley Jordan Barton
This research explores the potential mitigating effect of Mexico’s conditional cash transfer program, Oportunidades, on the education and labor impacts of increased homicide rates. Panel data models are combined with a difference-in-differences approach to compare children and young adults who receive cash transfers with those who do not. Results are very sensitive to specification, but Oportunidades participation is shown to be positively associated with educational attainment regardless of homicide increases. Homicides are associated with decreases in likelihood of school enrollment and compulsory education completion; however, they also correspond with increases in educational attainment, with a larger effect for Oportunidades non-recipients.
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Advisors: Professor Charles Becker, and Professor Michelle Connolly | JEL Codes: C23; D15; I20; I38; J24
Neighborhood Effects and School Performance: The Impact of Public Housing Demolitions on Children in North Carolina
By Rebecca Aqostino
This study explores how the demolitions of particularly distressed public housing units, through the Home Ownership for People Everywhere (HOPE VI) grants program, have affected academic outcomes for children in adjacent neighborhoods in Durham and Wilmington, North Carolina. I measure neighborhood-level changes and individual effects through regression analysis. All students in demolition communities are compared to those in control communities: census blocks in the same cities with public housing units that were not demolished. Those in the Durham experiment community experienced statistically significant gains when compared to those in the control communities; the effect is insignificant in Wilmington.
Advisor: Charles Becker, Helen Ladd, Marjorie McElroy | JEL Codes: C23, H41, H52, H75, I24, I25 | Tagged: Achievement, Demolitions, Distressed Housing, HOPE VI, Neighborhood Effects, Public Housing, School Performance
