Walling Off Crime: An Analysis of the Local Deterrent Effects of Increased Border Control

Research summaryIn recent years, there has been a rise in so‐called “progressive prosecutors” focused on criminal justice reforms. Although there has been considerable debate about the relationship between progressive prosecution policies and crime rates, there has been surprisingly little empirical research on the topic. Building on the limited extant research, we examined whether the inauguration of progressive prosecutors in the nation's 100 most populous counties impacted crime rates during a 21‐year period (2000 to 2020). After developing an original database of progressive prosecutors in the 100 largest counties, we used heterogeneous difference‐in‐differences regressions to examine the influence of progressive prosecutors on crime rates. Results show that the inauguration of progressive prosecutors led to statistically higher index property (∼7%) and total crime rates (driven by rising property crimes), and these effects were strongest since 2013—a period with an increasing number of progressive prosecutors. However, violent crime rates generally were not higher after a progressive prosecutor assumed control.Policy implicationsDespite concerns that the election of progressive prosecutors leads to “surging” levels of violence, these findings suggest that progressive‐oriented prosecutorial reforms led to relatively higher rates of property crime but had limited impact on rates of violent crime. In fact, in absolute terms, crime rates fell in jurisdictions with traditional and progressive prosecutors. Yet, relative property crime rates were greater after the inauguration of progressive prosecutors. Given that prior research shows progressive prosecutors reduce mass incarceration and racial inequalities, our findings indicate that higher property crime rates may be the price for these advancements.

ABSTRACT:As the literature examining the relationship between immigration and crime continues to evolve, scholars are now searching for ways to expand this link conceptually. Hand in hand with immigration, the number of Hispanic-owned businesses has grown at rates far exceeding the growth rate for all US businesses over the past two decades, carrying the expectation of local and national government officials of bringing jobs and revenue back into the economy. Yet research on how this growth in minority-owned businesses can help explain ecological crime variation is scarce. This study examines the role of Hispanic-owned businesses in the relationship between immigration and total property and violent crime rates, confirming that cities with higher rates of new immigration are not associated with higher violent crime rates, and have significantly lower property crime rates. Additional analyses examining whether this relationship is mediated by the presence of Hispanic-owned businesses also yield empirical support. The presence of Hispanic-owned businesses was found to attenuate the new immigration–property crime relationship significantly, and to render the association of immigration and property crime rates nonsignificant. The implications of these findings will be discussed, in so far as they relate to both public policy and research on immigration and crime.

PurposeThe cyclical behavior of US crime rates reflects the dynamics of crime in the country. This paper aims to investigate the US's club convergence of crime rates to provide insights into whether the crime rates increased or decreased over time. The paper also analyzes the factors influencing the probability of states converging to a particular convergence club of crime.Design/methodology/approachThe analysis is based on balanced panel data from all 50 states and the district of Columbia on violent and property crime rates covering 1976–2019. This yields a cross-state panel of 2,244 observations with 55 time periods and 51 groups. In addition, the author used a club clustering procedure to investigate the convergence hypothesis in the study.FindingsThe empirical results support population convergence of violent crime rates. However, the evidence that supports population convergence of property crime rates in the study is not found. Further analysis using the club clustering procedure shows that property crime rates converge into three clubs. The existence of club convergence in property crime rates means that the variation in the property crime rates tends to narrow among the states within each of the clubs identified in the study. Analysis based on an ordered probit model identifies economic, geographic and human capital factors that significantly drive the state's convergence club membership.Practical implicationsThe central policy insight from these results is that crime rates grow slowly over time, as evident by the convergence of violent crime and club convergence of property crime in the study. Moreover, the existence of club convergence of property crime is an indication that policies to mitigate property crime might need to target states within each club. This includes the efforts to use state rather than national crime-fighting policies.Social implicationsAs crimes are committed at the local level, this study's primary limitation is the lack of community-level data on crime and other factors considered. Analysis based on community-level data might provide a better representation of crime dynamics. However, the author hopes to consider this as less aggregated data are available to use in future research.Originality/valueThe paper provides new insights into the convergence of crime rates using the club convergence procedure in the USA. This is considered an improvement to the methods used in the previous studies.

Cohen and Felson's (1979) theory of is evaluated using 1972 and 1980 crime rate data for 676 American suburbs. Cross-sectional and change influences of criminal motivation (percent poor, percent unemployed, percent black, and percent youth), criminal opportunities (employment concentration and percent multiple housing) and guardianship (police employment, police expenditure, and female labor force nonparticipation) on suburban crime rates, 1980 and change in crime rates, 1972-80 are estimated using maximum likelihood (LISREL) techniques. Consistent with the routine activities model, a multiplicative effect of the preconditions for crime on crime rates is also estimated. Motivation, opportunities, and guardianship are found to have direct andlor indirect additive effects on violent andlor property crime rates-supporting the model. A multiplicative effect of the preconditions of crime is found for property crime but not for violent crime rates. Suburbs have historically been immune from many of the urban problems that plague central cities. However, urban problems have begun to invade the suburbs-traffic congestion and air pollution; rising crime and delinquency rates; deteriorating housing; poverty and unemployment (Gold 1982). Of particular interest has been the recent rapid increase in suburban crime rates. Uniform Crime Report (UCR) data indicate that suburban violent crime rates increased by 130.7 percent from 1970 to 1980 compared to a 47.4 percent increase for central cities. The UCR shows increases for property crime rates of 146.0 percent for suburbs and 93.5 percent for central cities. Empirical questions arising are what types of suburbs have begun to experience increases in crime rates? And why? To answer these questions, a model of suburban property and violent crime rates is expli*We thank the anonymous referees, and especially David F. Greenberg, for their helpful comments and criticisms on earlier versions of this paper. Address correspondence to John M. Stahura, Department of Sociology, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907. ?D 1988 The University of North Carolina Press

The widespread belief that illicit drugs are closely associated with crime has contributed to America's “War on Drugs” and attendant increases in arrests, convictions, and prison populations. However, the links between alcohol and crime have received less attention from policy makers and the public despite consistent evidence that alcohol is more likely than other drugs to be associated with violence. This study explores the relationship between alcohol and cocaine use and crime from 1989–1998, based on findings from the Drug Use Forecasting/Arrestee Drug and Alcohol Monitoring Program and the Uniform Crime Reports Program. We examine correlations among cocaine use, alcohol use, property crime, and violent crime at the city level to determine if there is a consistent pattern across cities over time. The analyses show a wide variation across cities in the links between both alcohol and cocaine use and violent and property crime rates over the 10-year period. However, the association between the annual rates of alcohol use and violent crime is stronger than that of alcohol use and property crime. These associations for alcohol remain in multivariate analyses, including statistical controls for temporal autocorrelation, SES, and heroin use. Cocaine use, in contrast, is not closely associated with either property or violent crime rates in the multivariate analyses. The findings suggest that to reduce violent crime rates, policy makers need to focus on addressing the contribution of alcohol. Furthermore, given the variation found across sites, efforts to reduce the drug/alcohol-crime links need to be tailored to local patterns and problems.

Purpose – Extant studies have shown immigration does not lead to higher crime rates, yet this fallacy persists. The aim of this chapter is to explore the relationship between crime and the presence and growth of the Latino and the foreign-born populations in Washington DC's City Council Wards. Methodology/approach – This chapter draws on Uniform Crime Reports data and Census information to compare and contrast crimes rates, the presence and growth of the Latino and foreign-born populations, and socioeconomic indicators across Washington DC. Findings – Violent and property crimes rates have decreased consistently since the mid-1990s despite the growth of the Latino and the foreign-born populations. While there are significant differences between crimes rates at the Council Ward level, they appear to be associated with persistent structural inequality – not the presence or growth of either group. Research limitations – This work is largely exploratory and descriptive. Results should be interpreted with caution. Future research should employ multivariate methods to systematically identify factors that most significantly and strongly explicate crime rates within and across DC Wards. Social implications – Preliminary findings suggest policy makers should shift attention away from scapegoating immigrants for social ills and focus on improving social and economic opportunities and the life outcomes of racialized subordinate group members throughout the United States. Originality – Little empirical research exists focusing on the relationship between immigration and crime in the nation's capital. This is a significant gap in the literature considering the recent rapid growth of the foreign-born and Latino populations in Washington DC.

Structural models of suburban violent and property crime rates are developed, utilizing elements of both ecological and criminological theory. The analysis of the models is based on data for 645 suburbs for which official crime data were available. Major findings were: (1) the effects of age composition on crime rates were largely spurious; (2) the per centage of low-income population was a key variable in explaining both violent and property crime rates; (3) percentage of black population had both direct and indirect effects on violent crime rates but no effects on property crime rates; and (4) suburban physical characteristics (size, density, employment/residence ratio, and region) also exerted both direct and indirect effects on crime rates. Implications for the develop ment of ecological and criminological theory are discussed, as are some of the policy implications.

We evaluate whether California's state proposition 47 impacted state violent and property crime rates. Passed by the voters in November 2014, the proposition redefined many less serious property and drug offenses that in the past could be charged as either a felony or misdemeanor to straight misdemeanors. The proposition caused a sudden and sizable decline in county jail populations, a moderate decline in the state prison population, a decrease in arrests for property and drug offenses, and a wave of legal petitions filed for retroactive resentencing and reclassification of prior convictions. We make use of multiple strategies to estimate the effect of the proposition, including state-level synthetic cohort analysis, within-state event study estimates based on state-level monthly time series, and a cross-county analysis of changes in county-level crime rates that exploit heterogeneity in the effects of the proposition on local criminal justice practices. We find little evidence of an impact on violent crime rates in the state. Once changes in offense definitions and reporting practices in key agencies are accounted for, violent crime in California is roughly at pre-proposition levels and generally lower than the levels that existed in 2010 prior to a wave major reforms to the state's criminal justice system. While our analysis of violent crime rates yields a few significant point estimates (a decrease in murder for one method and an increase in robbery for another), these findings are highly sensitivity to the method used to generate a counterfactual comparison path. We find more consistent evidence of an impact on property crime, operating primarily through an effect on larceny theft. The estimates are sensitive to the method used to generate the counterfactual, with more than half of the relative increase in property crime (and for some estimates considerably more) driven by a decline in the counterfactual crime rate rather than increases for California for several of the estimators that we employ. Despite this sensitivity, there is evidence from all methods tried that property crime increased with, a ballpark summary of five to seven percent roughly consistent with the totality of our analysis. Similar to violent crime, California property crime rates remain at historically low levels.

Using local administrative data from 1826 to 1936, we document the evolution of crime rates in nineteenth century France and we estimate the impact of a negative income shock on crime. Our identification strategy exploits the phylloxera crisis. Between 1863 and 1890, phylloxera destroyed about 40% of French vineyards. We use the geographical variation in the timing of this shock to identify its impact on property and violent crime rates, as well as minor offences. Our estimates suggest that the phylloxera crisis caused a substantial increase in property crime rates and a significant decrease in violent crimes.

Western provinces have experienced tremendous change over the last few decades, with oil booms and busts, with large international and interprovincial movement of workers and families, and with rising and declining property crime rates. What are the links between these economic, demographic, and crime rate changes? I investigate these links for Western Canada over the period from 1968 to 2015. Empirical results suggest that increases in household incomes and alcohol sales per capita, and decreases in unemployment rates, all signs of improved economic prosperity, coincided with decreases in rates of property crime. Increases in migration turnover (both inward and outward migration) put upward pressure on rates of property crime. In addition, changes in police reporting methods and categorization have had dramatic effects on official rates of property crime: the change from UCR1 to UCR2 reporting methodology caused rates of property crime to rise by between 18 per cent and 30 per cent in 1998, and changes in police reporting methods in 2003 caused property crime rates to rise again, by between 5 per cent and 16 per cent in 2003, for the western provinces. The recent rise in rates of property crime in the west is closely linked to the economic slowdown following the drop in oil and resource prices, and should migration turnover rates remain high as people move seeking better opportunities, property crime rates will remain high. Policymakers and criminal justice professionals may be advised and reminded of the effect of these economic and demographic changes, as well as the effect of reporting changes, on official rates property crime.

Features selection in multivariate forecasting model is very important to ensure that the model is accurate. The purpose of this study is to apply the Cooperative Feature Selection method for features selection. The features are economic indicators that will be used in crime rate forecasting model. The Cooperative Feature Selection combines grey relational analysis and artificial neural network to establish a cooperative model that can rank and select the significant economic indicators. Grey relational analysis is used to select the best data series to represent each economic indicator and is also used to rank the economic indicators according to its importance to the crime rate. After that, the artificial neural network is used to select the significant economic indicators for forecasting the crime rates. In this study, we used economic indicators of unemployment rate, consumer price index, gross domestic product and consumer sentiment index, as well as data rates of property crime and violent crime for the United States. Levenberg-Marquardt neural network is used in this study. From our experiments, we found that consumer price index is an important economic indicator that has a significant influence on the violent crime rate. While for property crime rate, the gross domestic product, unemployment rate and consumer price index are the influential economic indicators. The Cooperative Feature Selection is also found to produce smaller errors as compared to Multiple Linear Regression in forecasting property and violent crime rates.

This chapter shows how levels of inflation moderate the impact of unemployment on property crime and age-specific homicide rates for a sample of 82 American cities over the period between 1980 and 2009. The effect of unemployment on property crime rates and homicide is stronger during periods of high inflation; in fact, no relationship exists between unemployment and these crimes during periods of below-average inflation rates. And contrary to expectations, this study finds no evidence that the level of unemployment insurance benefits or a measure of drug market activity moderates the effect of economic adversity on crime rates. Thus it is recommended that future research on the relationship between macroeconomic conditions and crime rates move beyond simplistic assessments of “main effects” and consider the role of inflation and other conditions in moderating the relationship between crime rates and economic conditions such as unemployment and wages.

Despite a lack of rigorous empirical evidence, reduced crime is often touted as a potential benefit in the debate over increasing border infrastructure (i.e. border walls). This paper examines the effect of the Secure Fence Act of 2006, which led to unprecedented barrier construction along the US-Mexico border, on local crime using geospatial data on dates and locations of border wall construction. Synthetic control estimates across twelve border counties find no systematic evidence that border infrastructure reduced property or violent crime rates in the counties in which it was built. Further analysis using matched panel models indicates no effect on property crime rates and that observed declines in violent crime rates precede barrier construction, not the other way around. Taken together, this paper finds potential crime reductions are not a compelling argument towards the benefits of expanding border infrastructure.

Legal Firearm Sales at State Level and Rates of Violent Crime, Property Crime, and Homicides

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine how the combined crime rate and staffing levels of a patrol area affect patrol officers’ productivity. Specifically, the author identified and analyzed two macro-level correlates of patrol officer productivity: reported violent crimes per officer and reported property crimes per officer (a beat’s “crime-to-cop” ratios). Design/methodology/approach – Using hierarchical linear modeling, the author estimated the effects of a patrol area’s violent crimes per officer ratio and property crimes per officer ratio on the annual number of traffic citations, warrants, misdemeanor arrests, and felony arrests generated by patrol officers (n=302). The author also examined the effect of these crime-to-cop ratios on a more advanced productivity metric. Findings – The results suggest that a patrol area’s rate of property crimes per officer is associated with a moderate decrease in an officer’s annual number of traffic citations, warrant arrests, and misdemeanor arrests; a patrol area’s rate of violent crimes per officer is also associated with a moderate decrease in an officer’s annual number of traffic citations; and a patrol area’s rate of violent crimes per officer is associated with a moderate increase in an officer’s annual number of warrant and misdemeanor arrests. Notably, the crime-to-cop ratios are not correlated with a more sophisticated patrol productivity metric. Research limitations/implications – The author analyzed data from a mid-sized US police department that uses a generalists policing style. It is unknown if these results translate to smaller or larger police departments, as well as those agencies practicing a specialized policing style. Practical implications – The findings suggest that police scholars should not only recognize how the crime-to-cop ratios of a patrol area might impact patrol officer productivity, but also incorporate more sophisticated metrics of patrol officer activity in future studies. These findings likewise signal to police practitioners that an area’s crime-to-cop ratios should be considered when allocating officers and other resources across patrol areas. Originality/value – To the authors knowledge, this is the first study to identify and examine the link between a patrol area’s crime-to-cop ratios and patrol officer productivity.