Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP5837
Authors: Luis Garicano; Paul Heaton
Abstract: How does information technology (IT) affect the organization of police work? How does it in turn affect police crime-fighting effectiveness? To answer these questions, we construct a new panel data set of police departments covering 1987-2003. We find that while IT adoption had substantial effects on a wide range of police organizational practices, it had, by itself, a negligible impact on crime-fighting effectiveness. These results are robust to various methods for controlling for agency-level characteristics and the endogeneity of IT use. We then suggest and test two explanations for this puzzle. First, we demonstrate that use of a particular technology, computerized record-keeping, increased recorded crime rates. Second, we provide evidence that IT investments only had a substantial impact on crime clearance rates and crime rates when undertaken as part of a broad set of complementary organizational practices such as those in the Compstat program.
Keywords: Hierarchy; Information Technology; Organization; Police; Skills
JEL Codes: K42; L23; M5; O33
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| IT adoption (L86) | police organizational practices (D73) |
| IT adoption (L86) | crime-fighting effectiveness (K42) |
| computerized record-keeping (C80) | reported crime rates (K42) |
| IT adoption + complementary practices (O36) | crime clearance rates (K42) |
| IT adoption (L86) | management practices effectiveness (M54) |