Does the Concern About Local Crime Affect Trust in the Police?

Abstract

This paper investigates local crime’s concern effect on confidence in the police using Two Least Square Regressions having as instrumental variable the individual distance to police stations. We explore data from the Confidence in Justice Survey conducted for the period at 2013 to 2014 at state of Sao Paulo. We find that an increase at the total crimes registered reduces confidence on police. Such results are more effusively in some crimes like drug dealing and rape. Exploring heterogeneities in the results we find that black are more sensitive to crime rate changes even living in similar neighborhoods in what respect to security. Results also show that who has already had prior experience with the police is less sensitive independently of the quality of police job at the time.

Keywords: Trust in the Police, Institutions, Criminality

JEL Classification: K11, K30, K40