Abstract
Over 3.5 million pedestrians are stopped by police in the United States every year. We study the impact of investigative pedestrian stops on criminal activity and high school engagement by leveraging a lawsuit that abruptly reduced stop rates in New York City without altering patrol officer presence. Using differences-in-differences, we find that treatment neighborhoods experienced twice the reduction in stop rates but did not display differential increases in felonies and violent mis- demeanors or other crime measures over the five years following the reform. Our estimates rule out a 1.5% increase in felonies and violent misdemeanors. Coinciding with the reform, we document a sharp 44% reduction in the likelihood of leaving high school due to criminal justice involvement. Reductions are nearly three times larger for students from high-stop neighborhoods and six times larger for Black male students. We also observe sharp reductions in suspensions, chronic absenteeism, and dropout rates.
Jeffrey Fagan is a Professor of Law and Public Health at Columbia University, and Director of the Center for Crime, Community and Law at Columbia Law School. His research and scholarship focuses on crime, law and social policy. His current and recent research examines capital punishment, racial profiling, social contagion of violence, legal socialization of adolescents, the social geography of domestic violence, the jurisprudence of adolescent crime, drug control policy, and perceived legitimacy of the criminal law.