Does CompStat Incentivize More Violent Policing Outcomes? - CANCELLED

• In Event: Policing and Critical Incidents and Crises

Abstract

How do metrics management regimes influence policing? I argue that adoption of CompStat-style management techniques may increase the occurrence of violent policing outcomes by incentivizing police to pursue more interactions with citizens and incentivizing police to become more risk accepting in those interactions. To assess the empirical implications of the arguments, data on police lethality is analyzed pre-post adoption of CompStat in 48 large American cities, finding an increase in police killings. I also use death certificate data to measure local homicide rates and assess changes pre-post CompStat adoption to evaluate whether increased police violence may deter violent crime. There are no discernible effects of CompStat adoption on homicide.

Author

• David Fortunato, University of California, San Diego