全球智库信息集成服务系统(G2TT): DP14946 The Franchise, Policing, and Race: Evidence from Arrests Data and the Voting Rights Act

G2TT

来源类型	Discussion paper
规范类型	论文
来源ID	DP14946
	DP14946 The Franchise, Policing, and Race: Evidence from Arrests Data and the Voting Rights Act
	Giovanni Facchini; Brian Kinght; Cecilia Testa
发表日期	2020-06-26
出版年	2020
语种	英语
摘要	This paper investigates the relationship between the franchise and law enforcement practices using evidence from the Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965. We find that, following the VRA, black arrest rates fell in counties that were both covered by the legislation and had a large number of newly enfranchised black voters. We uncover no corresponding patterns for white arrest rates. The reduction in black arrest rates is driven by less serious offenses, for which police might have more enforcement discretion. Importantly, our results are driven by arrests carried out by sheriffs - who are always elected. While there are no corresponding changes for municipal police chiefs in aggregate, we do find similar patterns in covered counties with elected rather than appointed chiefs. We also show that our findings cannot be rationalized by alternative explanations, such as differences in collective bargaining, changes in the underlying propensity to commit crimes, responses to changes in policing practices, and changes in the suppression of civil right protests. Taken together, these results document that voting rights, when combined with elected, rather than appointed, chief law enforcement officers, can lead to improved treatment of minority groups by police.
主题	Economic History ; Public Economics
URL	https://cepr.org/publications/dp14946
来源智库	Centre for Economic Policy Research (United Kingdom)
资源类型	智库出版物
条目标识符	http://119.78.100.153/handle/2XGU8XDN/543891
推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714	Giovanni Facchini,Brian Kinght,Cecilia Testa. DP14946 The Franchise, Policing, and Race: Evidence from Arrests Data and the Voting Rights Act. 2020.