Among the myriad of ideas for reforming police currently under debate, many call for greater oversight of police conduct in ways that increase civilian participation. Whether increased civilian oversight will generate the desired reductions in police misconduct without chilling effective policing, however, remains under-studied.
A recent paper by Kyle Rozema (Wash U) and Max Schanzenbch (Northwestern), Does Discipline Decrease Police Misconduct? Evidence from Chicago Civilian Allegations, makes a helpful contribution to the empirical void. Exploiting 1990-2015 officer-level data from Chicago, the paper implements "an officer-level event study to investigate how officer misconduct changes after a civilian allegation of misconduct is sustained." To this end the paper, presented at the 2019 CELS, implements a stacked event study approach to investigate how "officer misconduct changes after a civilian allegation of misconduct is sustained" and considers three possible mechanisms: (police) incapacitation, shirking, and improved conduct. What the authors find is that: "In terms of mechanisms, we found no evidence that this effect results from incapacitation, such as desk duty assignment, and no evidence that it results from chilling effective policing. Even though sustained allegations result in negligible suspensions, we found evidence that a sustained allegation has a detrimental impact on promotion and pay. We interpret the results as most consistent with improved officer conduct driven by specific or marginal deterrence. Consequently, our findings suggest that sustaining the marginal allegation will improve police conduct without affecting overall police effectiveness." The paper's abstract follows.
“Reformers are calling for greater oversight of police behavior, in part through enhanced use of civilian complaints. However, others counter that greater oversight could chill effective policing. We assess police officer response to administrative determinations of misconduct. Using Chicago data, we find strong evidence that a sustained allegation reduces that officer’s future misconduct. We find no evidence that this effect is driven by incapacitation, such as assignment to desk duty, or by officer disengagement with policing. We conclude that our findings are consistent with improved officer conduct, in part due to officer concerns over promotion, salary, and desirable assignments.”
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