The Impact of Department of Justice Reform Agreements on Arrest Rates and Racial Disparity Within Arrests

Abstract

Section 14141 of the Violent Crime Control Act of 1994 gave the Department of Justice (DOJ) the authority to investigate institutional misconduct and compel reform within local police agencies. The focus of DOJ reform efforts is often directed at disrupting patterns of discriminatory policing practices within targeted police departments. DOJ-led investigations have found that many police departments identified for federal oversight have historically engaged in discriminatory and bias-based enforcement strategies. These strategies frequently result in a disproportionate volume of stops, searches, and arrests of minority populations. The racial disparity found in these enforcement strategies often deteriorates the trust and legitimacy of police officers. This article provides an evaluation of the impact of DOJ intervention on arrest rates and patterns of racial disparity in arrests within large city police departments. The analysis uses arrest data compiled from the Uniform Crime Reports to compare arrest patterns across major city police agencies that participated and did not participate in DOJ reform agreements focused on discriminatory enforcement between 1995 and 2018. This article approaches this evaluation through a heterogeneous difference-in-difference analysis that uses both attributable risk and relative risk measurements to compare the racial disparity within arrest trends during and after DOJ reform intervention.