Civic Responses to Police Violence

Abstract

Roughly a thousand people are killed by American law enforcement officers each year, accounting for more than 5% of all homicides. We estimate the causal impact of these events on civic engagement. Exploiting hyperlocal variation in how close residents live to a killing, we find that exposure to police violence leads to significant increases in registrations and votes. These effects are driven entirely by Black and Hispanic citizens and are largest for killings of unarmed individuals. We find corresponding increases in support for criminal justice reforms, suggesting that police violence may cause voters to politically mobilize against perceived injustice.

Felon re-enfranchisement, race, and arrests

“…We look at the impact of police violence. This test is motivated by Ang and Tebes (2023) and Morris and Shoub (2023), who find that exposure to police violence leads to a significant increase in political participation, especially by minorities. We use data from the mapping of police violence website that records all killings of civilians by police forces.…”