ogistics Agency and local police forces – Savvy Essay Writers | savvyessaywriters.net
ogistics Agency and local police forces – Savvy Essay Writers | savvyessaywriters.net
New York Economic Review Volume 49, Fall 2018
26
The Thin Blue Line:
Police Militarization and Violent Crime1
J. Britton Haynes Jr.2 Alexander F. McQuoid3
ABSTRACT
Recent events such as the riots in Ferguson, Missouri, have highlighted the increased militarization of police forces in
the United States. This paper utilizes a new dataset that covers all military equipment transfers between the Defense
Logistics Agency and local police forces from 1990 to 2014 to consider the effect of increased militarization on crime.
These transactions were conducted under the Department of Defense’s 1033 Program and constitute a major transfer
of capital resources to local police departments with nearly two billion dollars transferred in the form of surplus military
equipment. To deal with concerns of identification, we instrument for participation in the 1033 program using state-level
exposure to the military through federal military spending set by Congress. We find that increased capital transfers to
states embodied in military equipment reduces total violent crime and violent crime subcategories. The effect is large
for overtly militaristic equipment such as assault rifles, but also for less militaristic transfers such as communication
equipment, implying that both enhanced capabilities as well as power projection are important drivers of violent crime
reduction. In addition, we find no evidence of a labor input response through additional hiring of sworn police officers,
indicating that the program resulted in a more capital-intensive police force. Further, we find that increased police
militarization results in lower incarceration rates even after controlling for reduced crime rates, suggesting a broader
law and order impact beyond just enhanced capabilities. The results make clear that increased police militarization in
the United States has played a meaningful role in the reduction in violent crime observed over the last twenty-five years.
JEL classification: H56; H7; H72; H76;
1 The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the United States Naval
Academy or Department of Defense. We thank Amit Khandelwal, John Huston, Jonathan Dingel, David Grad, Joao
Salles, Paul Landefeld as well as seminar participants at Florida International University, Eastern Economic Association
Annual Conference, Western Economic Association Annual Conference, and the Congressional Budget Office for
feedback and comments. All errors are our own.
2 Ensign, United States Navy (brittonhaynes2@gmail.com)
3 Economics Department, United States Naval Academy, 589 McNair Road, Annapolis, MD 21402 (mcquoid@usna.edu)
mailto:brittonhaynes2@gmail.com
mailto:mcquoid@usna.edu
New York Economic Review Volume 49, Fall 2018
27
1 INTRODUCTION
On the night of November 24th, 2014, men patrolled the streets armed with M-4s adorned in body armor and
camouflage fatigues, while shielding their faces with gas masks. This scene seemed reminiscent of a patrol in Iraq,
Afghanistan, or some other foreign war-zone. However, these heavily armed men were not soldiers, but police
officers in Ferguson, Missouri. The police presence in Ferguson put a spotlight on the growing trend of police forces
across the United States employing military grade equipment.
Much, if not all, of this equipment is loaned to police departments across the country through the Department of
Defense (DoD) Excess Property Program 1033. 1033 has transferred nearly $2 billion worth of military equipment to
law enforcement agencies since its roots were formed in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Years 1990
and 1991. This militarization of United States police departments has raised serious questions about the practical need
and implications for police forces to have access to military equipment such as Mine Resistant Ambush Protected
(MRAP) vehicles and military style uniforms. Supporters state that police may operate more effectively with access to
military grade equipment and tactics, while detractors argue policing is fundamentally distinct from, and antithetical to,
military operations. While many Americans found the militaristic police images in Ferguson startling and uncomfortable,
only limited empirical work has been done to understand the implications of this massive militarization of local police
forces.
In this paper, we utilize data for all 50 U.S. States since the introduction of the 1033 program in 1997 to study the
impact on crime rates through 2013. The amount of military equipment transferred to local police departments varies
wildly across states and over time. We exploit this information to identify the impact of increased militarization on violent
and property crime rates, as well as additional aspects of law and order.
To preview our results, we find that after accounting for state heterogeneity, national secular crime trends, and
selection into the 1033 program, increased police militarization does meaningfully reduce violent crime rates. In
addition, we find no effect of the program on sworn police offer rates, which suggests the program works primarily
through enhancing the capital-intensity of police officers. We find evidence for both a capabilities enhancement effect
and a “projection of power” effect on reducing violent crime rates. Finally, we find that incarceration rates are lower in
areas with more militaristic police forces, even after controlling for declines in crime rates, suggesting a broader impact
on law and order. Based on these results, we conclude that increased police militarization in the United States has
played a meaningful role in the reduction in violent crime observed over the last twenty-five years.
The primary identification issue is that military transfers are not randomly distributed across states, but may
respond to current crime or expectations about future crime. For example, if those areas with the most crime or those
with appropriate expectations about future crime are the localities requesting more militarization, the estimated impact
of militarization will capture both the true effect of increased militarization as well as the selection bias. Since both the
sign of the effect and the selection bias are unknown, this could lead to a variety of inferential mistakes about the true
impact of police force militarization.
To address this concern, we deploy an instrumental variables approach based on state exposure to militarization
through federal military spending. Federal military spending differs across states and over time, and is driven by
historical and international military needs that are unlikely to be directly related to current state crime levels. Federal
military spending is controlled by Congress and mostly set in advance, making it unresponsive to local crime.
New York Economic Review Volume 49, Fall 2018
28
However, the presence of federal military spending provides state exposure to military culture, language,
personnel, and equipment. While federal military spending is not directly correlated with local crime, exposure through
increased interaction with military customs and personnel influences awareness and interest in military equipment.
Federal military spending is therefore a viable instrument for militarization of the local police force through the 1033
program.
Using a naive bivariate approach, we find no effect of increased police militarization on violent crime rates when
only police militarization is included in the empirical specification. The estimated effect is essentially zero. This
observation, however, conceals important features in the data. First, the inclusion of time trends is significant as the
US as a whole has experienced a secular decline in crime rates. Second, states differ dramatically in their exposure to
crime, and failing to account for these differences results in misleading inferences about the impact of increased
militarization. When both state fixed effects and control variables identified in the previous literature as significant
determinants of crime are included, the estimated effect of militarization is negative, but small. One might be tempted
to conclude that the massive resources transferred via the 1033 program were thus wasted.
However, even after controlling for observables, there is a lingering concern that selection into the 1033 program
has not been adequately accounted for in the analysis. In particular, it seems likely that high crime areas might be more
interested and willing to seek out additional resources, including military equipment transfers through the 1033 program.
This would create a positive correlation between militarization and crime rates, and result in a biased estimated
coefficient compared to the true causal effect.
These concerns are born out when militarization is instrumented for using federal military spending. The IV
specification results in estimates vastly more negative, suggesting that selection into the 1033 program is a significant
factor that needed to be accounted for in the analysis. As a result, the true estimated effect of militarization is quite
large and statistically significant for total violent crime as well as disaggregated violent crime categories such as murder,
forcible rape, aggravated assault, and robbery. We find no robust, statistically significant effects on total property crime
or property crime categories. Our results are robust to alternative specifications, sample periods, manpower
instruments, and assumptions on error terms.
The plan for the rest of the paper is as follows. Section 2 provides a review of the relevant literature, while Section
3 provides a brief description of the history and evolution of the 1033 program. Section 4 introduces the data and
descriptive statistics. Section 5 presents the empirical approach and results. Section 6 concludes.
2 Related Literature
Despite the controversial nature of the 1033 program, there has been only limited empirical
evaluations of…
