Why Limiting Aggressive Policing Led to Decreases in Violence in Rio de Janeiro

• In Event: Lightning Round: Research in Five: Graduate Students I

Abstract

Violent law enforcement deployments in Latin America are a common technique to fight organized crime. Officials only rarely intervene to institute limitations on police use of force. Amidst the Covid-19 lockdowns, however, the Supreme Court of Brazil issued an unusual order curtailing the use of police operations in Rio de Janeiro. What impact does a restriction on aggressive policing tactics have on violence, including violence just between citizens? I estimate the causal impact of the police operation ban on violence using a regression discontinuity design. I find that police killings decrease after the federal order by 66%, accompanied by decreases in police shootings and injuries resulting from shootings. A secondary effect of the ban on police operations is a sharp decrease in homicides and shootings just between citizens. These decreases in violence are not accompanied by a substitution effect with increases in non-violent crimes. I suggest that a state-driven de-escalation of tension between the police and criminal groups could decrease short-term violence by slowing the rate of criminal warfare.

Author

• Jessie Bullock, Harvard University