Quality (philosophy)

Philosophy

Human factors and ergonomics

Enforcement

Economics

Environmental health

Officer

Law enforcement

Poison control

Psychology

Violent crime

Political science

Homicide

Demographic economics

Epistemology

Criminology

Domestic violence

Medicine

The Review of Economic Studies

We study the impact of the integration of women in U.S. policing between the late 1970s and early 1990s on violent crime reporting and domestic violence (DV). Along these two key dimensions, we find that female officers improved police quality. Crime victimization data reveal that as female representation increases among officers in an area, violent crimes against women in that area, and especially DV, are reported to the police at significantly higher rates. There are no such effects for violent crimes against men or from increases in the female share of civilian police employees. Furthermore, increases in female officer shares are followed by significant declines in rates of intimate partner homicide and non-fatal domestic abuse. These effects are all consistent between fixed effects models with controls for economic and policy variables and models that focus exclusively on increases in female police employment driven by externally imposed affirmative action plans following litigation for employment discrimination.

Do Female Officers Improve Law Enforcement Quality? Effects on Crime Reporting and Domestic Violence