The Ecology of Violence: Police Use of Force, Legal Cynicism and Neighborhood Crime in Seattle, Washington

• In Event: Peripheral Systems and Police Legitimacy

Abstract

The impacts of policing on crime rates have garnered substantial scholarship over the decades, but less is known about whether police violence-crime relationship could be explained by legal cynicism. Although the relationship between police misconduct and civilians' disobedience to law has been implied in extant theories – the arguments of procedural justice theory, however, it has not been sufficiently and empirically tested to address the lack of consensus on whether police killings over the decades trigger the spikes in crime rate in the US. Hence, this study solves the puzzle by examining whether the dynamics of the relationship between use of force and neighborhood crime rates in the City of Seattle, Washington between 2015 and 2024 could be explained by legal cynicism, which is measured by 911 calling pattern. I incorporate datasets on use of force, crime, and 911 calls from Seattle Police Department and city-level indicators in the American Community Survey. Analysis using Fixed-effect modelling strategy reveals several findings that support procedural justice model and literature on neighborhood correlates of use of force. These findings are imperative for police reforms, police-community relations, and result-oriented policing for public order/safety. Avenues for future research and implications for theory and research are discussed.

Author

• Ali Shodunke, The Pennsylvania State University