Law Enforcement Officers’ Bills of Rights and Police Violence

Abstract

There is widespread concern among activists and legal scholars that Law Enforcement Officers' Bills of Rights (LEOBRs) limit police accountability and potentially impact the use of force. We exploit variation in the timing of the adoption of LEOBRs across states to examine their impact on police-related fatalities using a stacked event study approach. We find no evidence that the introduction of LEOBRs impacted police-related fatalities for either White or non-White civilians. It is important to note that police killings result from the most extreme use of force and our results do not rule out changes in the use of nonlethal force.