Three essays on the economics of crime prevention

This dissertation is about how to fight crime and violence in Brazil, specifically in its most dangerous part: the Northeast region. The first chapter explores Military Police strikes to identify the causal effect of the lack of preventive policing on crime. Using a difference-in-differences design, I compare violent and non-violent crimes in Bahia and Ceará, which experienced 33% and 70% short-term decreases in the number of officers available for patrolling with similar states in the Northeast region before and during police walkouts. In this setting, deterrence had an essential role in violent behavior: the evidence regarding the police-crime elasticity for violent crimes is as strong as -2.5, and a back-of-envelope calculation reveals that police strikes could cost up to U$ 8.68 million daily. Very large police-crime elasticities associated with de-policing suggest that the offenders' perceived probability of being caught has asymmetric effects on their expected utility of committing a crime. Also, motor vehicle theft and robbery analysis indicates that criminals preferred violent methods to achieve their goals when the probability of being caught committing a crime was very low. The study sheds light on what can happen without preventive policing on the streets and, specifically, shows the implications of police strikes on public safety. In Chapter 2, Jose Carvalho and I evaluate one of the most common policing strategies in Brazil: the allocation of blitzes. This place-based intervention has well-defined policing assignments, and 3,423 interventions were precisely recorded in Fortaleza-CE between 2012 and 2013. I leverage the high spatiotemporal data resolution to make comparisons of small intervention areas at the same period of day and day of the week while controlling for common daily trends and show that an average police crackdown causes a 35% decrease in violent crime occurrences. As somewhat expected, there are diminishing returns of public safety to hours spent by the police in a single area. Although crime increases by 6% immediately after the end of a blitz, we observe lasting deterrent effects after 2-3 days. The residual deterrence cancels the crime relocation, and the intervention does not generate significant temporal displacement. Besides, we do not find crime spatial displacement to blocks up to 1.5 km from a blitz. This type of policing tactic generates deterrence by being highly visible in a street segment for a short period (30 minutes to 8 hours) and quasi-random in space-time - this intermittent design produces uncertainty that might be crucial to minimize temporal and spatial displacement of crime. Finally, the third chapter analyzes a citywide large-scale urban renewal project focused on disadvantaged neighborhoods with high shares of young adults in Fortaleza-CE. The program builds football fields, invests in citizenship formation through football lessons, and improves the nearby infrastructure with a playground, street lighting, and sidewalk. This paper uses a difference-in-differences design to provide the causal effects of this neighborhood intervention on violent crime and students' performance. Football fields cause, on average, a 2/3 decrease in homicide rates with no evidence of crime moving around the corner or clock. Young males with criminal history drive estimates, which suggests that renovated areas experience fewer gang fights after the policy's implementation. Voluntary incapacitation, more State presence, and eyes on the streets are relevant mechanisms that might explain the decrease in violence. Also, fifth-graders who study close to a football arena improved their Math scores by 2.5%, on average. Considering the neighborhood's amenity value and public safety improvements, social benefit exceeds costs within two years. The study shows that urban policies that blend person- and place-based interventions might be cost-effective alternatives to Police Services to reduce homicides.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Economics

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2023

Author dc:creator

• Batista Guerra Junior, Marcelino

Contributors dc:contributor

• Bernhardt, Mark Daniel
• Albouy, David Yves
• Garin, Andrew Lewis
• Bartik, Alexander Wickman

• Urban Economics
• Economics Of Crime

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2023 Marcelino Batista Guerra Junior

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/121257

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F121257