Community Engagement and Public Safety: Evidence from Crime Enforcement Targeting Immigrants

This paper studies how immigration enforcement affects public safety, asking two questions: (1) what is the effect of increased enforcement on criminal victimization, and (2) how does increased enforcement affect victims’ willingness to report crimes to police? The authors exploit the staggered rollout of the U.S. Secure Communities (SC) program — the largest expansion of interior immigration enforcement in U.S. history — across counties between 2008 and 2013. SC expanded information sharing between local police and federal immigration authorities, causing ICE honored detainer requests to increase by over 50% following program activation.

Professional Motivations in the Public Sector: Evidence from Police Officers

This paper studies how public sector workers balance professional motivations against private economic concerns, using arrest decisions by Dallas Police Department (DPD) officers as the empirical laboratory. The central institutional feature exploited is that arrests made near the end of an officer’s shift typically require the officer to stay and work overtime, generating private costs that must be weighed against the professional benefits of making an arrest (e.g., crime reduction or duty fulfillment). The paper further leverages variation from DPD’s “secondary employment” program: approximately 30% of officers held a registered second job at some point during 2019–2021, and on days when a second job is scheduled after the police shift, the opportunity cost of late-shift policing is higher.

Felipe Gonçalves | Macro Paper Warehouse

Community Engagement and Public Safety: Evidence from Crime Enforcement Targeting Immigrants

Professional Motivations in the Public Sector: Evidence from Police Officers