Registering a Proposed Business Reduces Police Stops of Innocent People? Reconsidering the Effects of Sex Work on Sex Crimes Found in Ciacci & Sviatschi’s Study of New York City

Abstract

Ciacci & Sviatschi’s (2021) ‘The Effect of Adult Entertainment Establishments on Sex Crime: Evidence from New York City,’ published in The Economic Journal, concluded that opening new adult entertainment businesses reduces sex crimes, with the most compelling finding that ‘[strip clubs, gentleman’s clubs, and escort services] decrease sex crime by 13% per police precinct one week after the opening.’ We contend that the study’s conclusions speak beyond the data, which cannot support these findings because they do not measure the necessary variables. The study uses the date a business is registered with New York State as a proxy for its opening date, but the actual date of opening comes weeks or months later, after requirements such as inspections, licensure, and community board approval. The study then uses police Stop, Question and Frisk Reports as data about subsequent crimes. As reports created to memorialize forcible police stops based on less than probable cause, 94% of these reports document that the police had an unfounded belief in criminal activity, and the person stopped was innocent of any crime. In effect, what the study has done is measure changes in police encounters with innocent people in the week after an entity has filed the paperwork that will eventually allow it to open as a business. The study lacks construct validity, cannot reject the null hypothesis of its most important finding, and its methods fall short of the rigor necessary to permit replication.

Keywords: Sex crime, sex work, stop and frisk, police, law enforcement

JEL Classification: I18, J16, J47, K14, K42