Working Papers

The Boss in Blue: Supervisors and Police Behavior
[Supplementary Appendix]
We know little about the influence of supervisors in high-stakes, discretionary settings such as policing. Leveraging frequent rotations of officers between supervisors—sergeants—I estimate causal effects of individual sergeants on arrests. Moving an officer from a 10th to 90th percentile sergeant increases monthly arrests by 42%. Sergeant effects on serious and low-level arrests are weakly correlated and reflect distinct officer behaviors. Sergeants who drive low-level arrests do so mainly via discretionary drug enforcement, disproportionately affecting Black civilians and increasing use of force. These findings position supervisors as critical actors in shaping police behavior and offer new insights for reform.

`Who You Gonna Call?` 911 Call Takers and Police Discretion
[Supplementary Appendix]
Police officers make high-stakes decisions under uncertainty, often acting on information from 911 call takers. Using quasi-random assignment of calls to call-takers in Dallas, I show that variation in call takers’ risk assessments significantly affects arrests. Calls upgraded to priority increase arrests by 53% relative to the mean, primarily for low-level offenses. These effects are partly driven by officers using call information to inform evaluations of suspect culpability, with stronger responses among inexperienced officers or in racially discordant neighborhoods. The results highlight the critical role of call takers and officer information processing in shaping enforcement.

Teamwork in Policing (Draft available upon request)
I estimate the effects of teamwork in 911 call responses. In order to circumvent the endogenous assignment of more officers to calls with greater unobserved severity, I leverage exogenous variation in the number of double-manned patrol vehicles across shifts. I find that police are more likely to use their enforcement powers when dispatched in teams: an additional officer being dispatched to a call increases the likelihood of an arrest being made by 24% relative to the mean. I interpret these findings as evidence that officer teams reduce the costs of enforcement. Indeed, in the rare case where officers experience suspect resistance, the presence of more officers is associated with a lower likelihood of an officer being sent to the hospital. The results suggest that policing strategies which maximize patrol area to increase deterrence come at the cost of lower incapacitation capabilities.