Community Engagement and Public Safety: Evidence from Crime Enforcement Targeting ImmigrantsIndian Rupee

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Goncalves, Felipe; Jacome, Elisa; Weisburst, Emily
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California Los Angeles; National Bureau of Economic Research; Northwestern University
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282; 1944-7981
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.20250305
• 发表日期: 2026-08
• 页码: 3076-3109
• 关键词: immigration enforcement; law-enforcement; cops; mechanisms; deterrence; rates

摘要

We study the role of victim reporting in the production of public safety. We examine the Secure Communities program, a crime-reduction policy that involved police in detecting unauthorized immigrants and increased deportation fears in immigrant communities. We find that the policy reduced the likelihood that Hispanic victims report crimes to police and increased offending against Hispanics. The number of reported crimes is unchanged, masking these opposing effects. We show that reduced reporting drives the offending increase and provide the first elasticity of offending to victim reporting in the literature, calculating that a 10 percent decline in reporting increases offending by 7.9 percent. (JEL J15, K37, K42)