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1. Mexico Evidence on the Regional Retail Impacts of Violent Crime

   https://doi.org/10.22158/jepf.v4n3p244  

   Fullerton, Jr.; Walke, Adam G. (July 2018, Journal of Economics and Public Finance)

   Prior research reports mixed results regarding the economic impacts of crime. This study employs data from all regions of Mexico, including border regions in both the north and the south, to examine the effects of homicides on retail activity across Mexico during a period of escalating violence. The results indicate that one additional homicide within a municipality eliminates one retail establishment and one paid job in the retail sector. Furthermore, the negative consequences of violent crime for retailers are augmented by proximity to an international border. This is consistent with previous research findings that cross-border shopping is a key feature of commerce along the international boundaries of Mexico. It suggests that crime waves may disproportionately impact border city retail activity by partially diverting customer traffic to stores located in neighboring countries. This result is also consistent with the finding of recent research that violent conflict in northern Mexico resulted in increased retail activity in some United States border cities. 

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2. Changes in public–police cooperation following the murder of George Floyd

   https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgac189  

   Brantingham, P. Jeffrey; Mohler, George; MacDonald, John; Pescosolido, ed., Bernice (September 2022, PNAS Nexus)

   Abstract The murder of George Floyd triggered a broad social response and noticeable shift in public opinion of policing. Since policing is dependent upon public cooperation, a question is whether the shift in opinion had an effect on police calls-for-service. Data from Los Angeles and New York City are evaluated using a regression discontinuity design. Violent crime, property crime, and quality-of-life disorder calls are analyzed to address differences in reporting norms. The role of racial–ethnic composition of local areas is assessed by examining census tracts where the majority of the residential population is Asian, Black, Hispanic, or White. Following the murder of George Floyd, in New York City violent crime, property crime, and quality-of-life calls all increased significantly. In Los Angeles, quality-of-life calls for service decreased significantly. The increase in violent crime calls observed in New York was greatest in areas where the majority of residents are Black, whereas the increase in property crime calls was the greatest in areas where a majority of residents are White. The decrease in quality-of-life calls observed in Los Angeles was in areas where the majority of residents are White. In both cases, the effect was relatively short-lived. 

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3. Neighborhood street activity and greenspace usage uniquely contribute to predicting crime

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s42949-020-00005-7  

   Schertz, Kathryn E.; Saxon, James; Cardenas-Iniguez, Carlos; Bettencourt, Luís M.; Ding, Yi; Hoffmann, Henry; Berman, Marc G. (December 2021, npj Urban Sustainability)

   null (Ed.)

   Abstract Crime is a costly societal issue. While many factors influence urban crime, one less-studied but potentially important factor is neighborhood greenspace. Research has shown that greenspace is often negatively associated with crime. Measuring residents’ use of greenspace, as opposed to mere physical presence, is critical to understanding this association. Here, we used cell phone mobility data to quantify local street activity and park visits in Chicago and New York City. We found that both factors were negatively associated with crime, while controlling for socio-demographic factors. Each factor explained unique variance, suggesting multiple pathways for the influence of street activity and greenspace on crime. Physical tree canopy had a smaller association with crime, and was only a significant predictor in Chicago. These findings were further supported by exploratory directed acyclic graph modeling, which found separate direct paths for both park visits and street activity to crime. 

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4. Impacts of California Proposition 47 on crime in Santa Monica, California

   https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251199  

   Crodelle, Jennifer; Vallejo, Celeste; Schmidtchen, Markus; Topaz, Chad M.; D’Orsogna, Maria R. (May 2021, PLOS ONE)

   Ribeiro, Haroldo V. (Ed.)

   We examine patterns of reported crime in Santa Monica, California before and after the passage of Proposition 47, a 2014 initiative that reclassified some non-violent felonies as misdemeanors. We also investigate impacts of the opening of four new light rail stations in 2016 and of increased community-based policing starting in late 2018. Our statistical analyses of reclassified crimes—larceny, fraud, possession of narcotics, forgery, receiving/possessing stolen property—and non-reclassified ones are based on publicly available reported crime data from 2006 to 2019. These analyses examine reported crime at various levels: city-wide, within eight neighborhoods, and within a 450-meter radius of the new transit stations. Monthly reported reclassified crimes increased city-wide by approximately 15% after enactment of Proposition 47, with a significant drop observed in late 2018. Downtown exhibited the largest overall surge. Reported non-reclassified crimes fell overall by approximately 9%. Areas surrounding two new train stations, including Downtown, saw significant increases in reported crime after train service began. While reported reclassified crimes increased after passage of Proposition 47, non-reclassified crimes, for the most part, decreased or stayed constant, suggesting that Proposition 47 may have impacted reported crime in Santa Monica. Reported crimes decreased in late 2018 concurrent with the adoption of new community-based policing measures. Follow-up studies needed to confirm long-term trends may be challenging due to the COVID-19 pandemic that drastically changed societal conditions. While our research detects changes in reported crime, it does not provide causative explanations. Our work, along with other considerations relevant to public utility, respect for human rights, and existence of socioeconomic disparities, may be useful to law enforcement and policymakers to assess the overall effect of Proposition 47. 

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5. Runaway Feedback Loops in Predictive Policing

   Ensign, Danielle; Friedler, Sorelle A; Nevlle, Scott; Scheidegger, Carlos; Venkatasubramanian, Suresh (February 2018, Proceedings of the 1st Conference on Fairness, Accountability and Transparency)

   Predictive policing systems are increasingly used to determine how to allocate police across a city in order to best prevent crime. Discovered crime data (e.g., arrest counts) are used to help update the model, and the process is repeated. Such systems have been shown susceptible to runaway feedback loops, where police are repeatedly sent back to the same neighborhoods regardless of the true crime rate. In response, we develop a mathematical model of predictive policing that proves why this feedback loop occurs, show empirically that this model exhibits such problems, and demonstrate how to change the inputs to a predictive policing system (in a black-box manner) so the runaway feedback loop does not occur, allowing the true crime rate to be learned. Our results are quantitative: we can establish a link (in our model) between the degree to which runaway feedback causes problems and the disparity in crime rates between areas. Moreover, we can also demonstrate the way in which reported incidents of crime (those reported by residents) and discovered incidents of crime (i.e those directly observed by police officers dispatched as a result of the predictive policing algorithm) interact: in brief, while reported incidents can attenuate the degree of runaway feedback, they cannot entirely remove it without the interventions we suggest. 

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