Spatial and Temporal Trends in the Enforcement of Low-Level Offenses in St. Louis City from 2002 – 2017

• In Event: Enforcement of Lower-Level Offenses in the United States: Findings from the Research Network on Misdemeanor Justice, Part I

Abstract

Recent media attention has centered on police use of force, but most police-citizen encounters are routine and related to the enforcement of local ordinances and misdemeanors. While minor in nature, police activity targeted at low-level offenses has serious consequences not only for the people who are subject to enforcement activity, but also the communities in which they live. Using sixteen years of data, this research explores the relationship between neighborhood characteristics and the enforcement of low level offenses (e.g., arrests for ordinance violations, misdemeanors, and bench warrants as well as the issuance of citations) in St. Louis City. Information on the enforcement of low-level offenses was obtained from St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department official records and was geo-coded and aggregated to the census-tract level. Community characteristics were captured using a number of sources including data from the United States Census. Preliminary results indicate that for the city as a whole, the enforcement of low-level offenses decreased steadily from 2002 to 2017, although the extent of the decrease varied across places and types of enforcement activity. Implications for the notions of over- and under-policing are discussed.

Authors

• Lee Ann Slocum, University of Missouri - St. Louis

• Beth M. Huebner, University of Missouri - St. Louis

• Claire Greene, University of Missouri - St. Louis

• Richard Rosenfeld, University of Missouri - St. Louis