De‐policing as a consequence of the so‐called “Ferguson effect”

• Date: 01 February 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12430
• Published date: 01 February 2019
• Author: John M. MacDonald

DOI: 10.1111/1745-9133.12430

EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION

DE-POLICING AND THE HOMICIDE RAISE

De-policing as a consequence of the so-called

“Ferguson effect”

John M. MacDonald

University of Pennsylvania

Correspondence

JohnM. MacDonald, Depar tment of Criminology,3718 Locust Walk, McNeil Building, Suite 483, University of Pennsylvania,

Philadelphia,PA 19104.

Email:johnmm@upenn.edu.

Few issues in contemporary criminology have raised more controversy than the importance of the

police in controlling crime. The findings from a robust set of experimental studies show that when

police are deployed to high-crime areas, commonly referred to as crime “hot spots,” crime rates drop

for some period of time (Braga & Bond, 2008; Braga, Papachristos, & Hureau, 2014; Braga et al.,

1999; Sherman & Weisburd, 1995). Alongside these studies are a set of policy evaluations of changes

in police deployment, with findings that show that police reduce crime when they saturate an area

with more officers (Braga et al., 2014). The results of a recent study, for example, show that flood-

ing high-crime areas with extra police fresh out of the academy was a contributor to the decline in

New York City's crime rate between 2004 and 2012 (MacDonald, Fagan, & Geller, 2016). A National

Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine panel in 2018 concluded that the “available research

evidence suggests that hot spots policing interventions generatestatistically significant crime-reduction

impacts without simply displacing crime into areas immediately surrounding the targeted locations”

(p. 129). Given the weight of the evidence of the deterrent effects of the police on crime, Durlauf and

Nagin (2011) argued in an article published in Criminology & Public Policy that policy makers should

consider spending more on police and less on prison.

If we take it as an axiom that the police deter crime, it is natural to think that when the patterns

of crime start changing systematically, the police must have played some role. The uptick in the

homicide and violent crime rates in the United States in 2015 led some scholars and pundits to ask

whether we were seeing a reversal of the nearly 25-yearsustained reduction in ser ious crime rates, and

whether this potential reversal was a result of a change in police behavior. Former FBI Director James

Comey (2015) famously noted he was hearing that the political protests surrounding controversial

policing killings of civilians were resulting in a reduction in proactive policing. Comey had heard

from local law enforcement agencies that police officers were feeling “under siege” from the protests

and negative media coverage and werepulling back from more practice engagement with the public to

reduce crime. Political pundit Heather MacDonald (2016) also raised a concern that there was a “war

on cops” and that as a result, the police had begun to feel compelled to disengage from the community.

Criminology & Public Policy. 2019;18:47–49. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/capp © 2019 American Society of Criminology 47