Crime and (a Preference for) Punishment: The Effects of Drug Policy Reform on Policing Activity

Abstract

Researchers still know very little about the incentives of police. Using geocoded crime data and a novel source of within-city variation in punishment severity, I shed light on enforcement behavior. I find a 13 percent decrease in drug arrests in parts of a city where drug sale penalties were weakened. There is no displacement of nondrug offenses. If offenders are significantly deterred by harsher penalties, as the law intended and Becker’s model of criminal behavior predicts, drug arrests should increase in areas with weaker penalties. My results are therefore consistent with police officers treating enforcement effort and punishment severity as complements. I also find that citywide crime and drug use do not increase after the reform. I thus call into question the War on Drugs view of punishment and suggest that certain types of enforcement can be reduced without incurring large public safety costs.