Does Oversight Reduce Policing? Evidence from the Cincinnati Police Department After the April 2001 Riot

Oversight of a bureaucracy induces its agents to yield to consumers’ demands excessively. Oversight is initiated by consumers’ complaints when they are wrongly denied the resource under allocation. This paper tests this prediction in a police setting. A riot erupted in Cincinnati after a white officer shot dead an unarmed African-American male in April 2001. The sharply increased media attention and an ensuing federal investigation provided exogenous variation in oversight. Compared to the period from January 1999 to March 2001, arrests during the remaining period of 2001 fell substantially. The decline was more significant for offenses where police officers had more discretion. Communities with a higher percentage of African-Americans ∗I am grateful to Canice Prendergast and Marianne Bertrand for their guidance. This paper benefited greatly from comments and discussions from Bo Becker and John Eck and participants of seminars at the Department of Economics and the Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences of the University of Washington. I thank the Cincinnati Police Department for their generous data support. Correspondence can be addressed to Lan Shi, Department of Economics, University of Washington, Box 353330, Seattle, WA 98195. Email: [email protected].