Police Labor Unrest and Lengthy Contract Negotiations: Does Police Misconduct Increase with Time Spent Out of Contract?

Abstract

This paper presents evidence of the effect of labor unrest on labor production in the policing context using data from New York City. When contract negotiations last for an extended period, old contracts can expire before new ones are approved. Working under an expired contract, or being "out of contract," can be costly for police officers both monetarily and psychologically. This paper studies the effect of time spent out of contract on police misconduct using new data and a research design that exploits the fact that different ranks of NYPD officers are out of contract at different points in time and for different lengths of time. I find evidence that incidents of police officer discourtesy and abuse of authority increase with the amount of time spent out of contract; there is no statistically significant relationship between incidents of police brutality (i.e.--excessive force) and time spent out of contract.