There is a vigorous debate on whether arrests for domestic violence (DV) will deter future abuse or create a retaliatory backlash. We study how arrests affect the dynamics of DV using administrative data for over 124,000 DV emergency calls (999 calls) for West Midlands, the second most populous...

There is a vigorous debate on whether arrests for domestic violence (DV) will deter future abuse or create a retaliatory backlash. We study how arrests affect the dynamics of DV using administrative data for over 124,000 DV emergency calls (999 calls) for West Midlands, the second most populous...

In this paper, I explore the coping mechanisms deployed by shopkeepers in the face of extortion in the port city of Buenaventura, in southwestern Colombia. Relying on six months of fieldwork experience in a hardware shop of Ciudad Blanca, an impoverished neighborhood, I examine the everyday...

We provide evidence of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on racial hate crime in England and Wales. Using various data sources, including unique data collected through Freedom of Information (FOI) requests from UK police forces, a difference-in-difference and event study approaches, we find...

The consequences of successful public health interventions for social violence and conflict are largely unknown. This paper closes this gap by evaluating the effect of a major health intervention - the successful expansion of anti-retroviral therapy (ART) to combat the HIV/AIDS pandemic - in...

This paper asks whether social movements taking place on Twitter affect gender-based violence (GBV). Using Twitter data and machine learning methods, we construct a novel data set on the prevalence of Twitter conversations about GBV. We then link this data to weekly crime reports at the federal...

We examine the short- and medium-term effects of announcements of changes in anti-crime policies in the distant future (news shocks) and provide a first extension of the analysis to cases where the announced policy changes may not be realized in the end (noise shocks). We further innovate by...

We provide first evidence that temporal variations in the expected returns to crime affect the location of property crime. Our identification strategy relies on the widely-held perception in the UK that households of South Asian descent store gold jewellery at home. Price movements on the...

This study focuses on one form of IFF, namely corruption and the resultant money laundering. The central aim is to describe and analyse the symbiotic relationship between corruption and money laundering and how they mutually reinforce an IFF ecosystem inclined towards draining resources needed...

Classical thinkers like Bentham saw deterrence as a dynamic process in which the punishment of violators today helped deter potential violators in the future by increasing their subjective probability of apprehension. Modern deterrence theory took a different path, analyzing deterrence as a...

We estimate the effect of losing Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits at age 18 on criminal justice and employment outcomes over the next two decades. To estimate this effect, we use a regression discontinuity design in the likelihood of being reviewed for SSI eligibility at age 18...

This research on public drinking-related conflict and violence has studied the views and experience of security officers and young male drinkers in the Newcastle/Hunter areas of New South Wales, Australia. These participants were recruited non-randomly into different focus groups, and...

How can we get more ‘output,’ and of the right sort, from policing? The question has only taken on greater importance with recent, widely publicized instances of police misconduct; declines in public trust in police; and a rise in gun violence, all disproportionately concentrated in...

The Criminal Justice System should be inexpensive, speedy and efficient. This is essential for the smooth growth of the society as it is the primary duty of the state to administer inexpensive and speedy justice to its subjects. In Pakistan the criminal justice system has become expensive and...

At least 228 people executed in the modern era—or more than one in every seven—were right too soon. That is, they had claims in their case that today would render their execution unconstitutional, but were killed because of a legal regime that arrived too late. Roughly 30% of our total...

Exploiting a novel data set of criminal trials in 19th century London, we evaluate the impact of an accused’s right to counsel on convictions. While lower-level crimes had an established history of professional representation prior to 1836, individuals accused of committing a felony did not,...

Drawing on in-depth analysis of nineteen criminal networks in the Americas, this paper develops a multidimensional typology of criminal organization that can be used by policymakers to more effectively target criminal networks. The typology distinguishes between criminal networks by evaluating...

We examine the impact of criminalizing sex work, exploiting an event in which local officials unexpectedly criminalized sex work in one district in East Java, Indonesia, but not in neighboring districts. We collect data from female sex workers and their clients before and after the change. We...

Schools face important policy tradeoffs in monitoring and managing student behavior. Strict discipline policies may stigmatize suspended students and expose them to the criminal justice system at a young age. On the other hand, strict discipline acts as a deterrent and limits harmful spillovers...

Do reductions in arrests increase crime? We study line-of-duty deaths of police officers, events that likely impact police behavior through increased fear but are unlikely to directly impact civilian behavior. Officer deaths cause significant short-term reductions in all arrest types, with the...

Communities across the United States are reconsidering the public safety benefits of prosecuting nonviolent misdemeanor offenses. So far there has been little empirical evidence to inform policy in this area. In this paper we report the first estimates of the causal effects of misdemeanor...

This paper evaluates the effect on crime of creating a fundamental modern-day institution: centralized professional police forces tasked with preventing crime. We study the 1829 formation of the London Metropolitan Police - the first professional force worldwide. Using newly digitized and...

The main goal of collective punishment (CP) is the deterrence of future "wrong-doing" by freedom fighters or terrorists, protesters against an authoritative government, polluters, students playing pranks on their teacher, football teams lacking enthusiasm, or soldiers showing cowardice to the...