| 讲座简介： | Abstract: The shooting event happened in Ferguson, MO, in 2014 and the protest followed it is regarded as a signal of deteriorating relationship between police and community in the United States. In this paper, we use a special data set to test the existence of the so called "Ferguson Effect", which argues that police officers are retreating from proactive policing due to the external pressure and criminals are emboldened to bring violence to local neighborhoods. Based on the 2013-2015 records, we find an immediate and significant decline in the number of self-initiated activities (SIA) made by St. Louis police officers after the shooting event and most of the decline happened in the African-American neighborhoods. In the mean time, violent crimes such as homicide and robbery increased in the disadvantaged neighborhoods. We do not find supportive evidence for the legal cynicism in these disadvantaged neighborhoods since the number of 911 calls from these areas did not significantly decrease after the shooting. |
