Depolicing in Chicago: Assessing the Quantity and Quality of Policing after the Fatal Police Shooting of Laquan McDonald

Abstract

The release of dashcam footage showing a Chicago Police Department (CPD) officer fatally shooting 17-year-old Laquan McDonald in 2015 placed extraordinary scrutiny on CPD to avoid another controversial case of police misconduct. Using data on arrests as well as traffic stops and searches, we assess whether the quantity and quality of policing in Chicago changed after the video documenting this vivid incident of deadly force was released. We find that while both felony and misdemeanor arrest rates declined after Laquan’s murder was publicized, this event had no discernable impact on traffic stop rates, contraband hit rates, or the ratio of felony to misdemeanor arrests. Supplemental analyses reveal that declines in felony arrest rates were most pronounced in majority-Black districts due to reductions in drug possession and firearm arrests. Our findings provide nuanced evidence of a depolicing effect that may reflect attempts by CPD to reclaim legitimacy following this pivotal event.

Keywords:

• Chicago
• police
• arrests
• traffic stops
• race

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and editor for invaluable input during the review process.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Using this classification, the following districts were considered “majority-Black”: 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th, 5^th, 6^th, 7^th, 11^th, 15^th, and 22^nd. Black population shares in “minority-Black” districts ranged from 1.38% (in the 16^th district) to 32.5% (in the 10^th).

2 High priority calls include Priority Level 1 incidents, which represent “an imminent threat to life, bodily injury, or major property damage/loss.”

3 CPD’s deployment of body worn cameras began in June 2016 and was implemented in seven of CPD’s 22 districts by the end of our study period.

4 The inverse hyperbolic sine is used over a traditional logarithmic transformation because it does not generate missing observations when transforming zeroes, but follows a similar interpretation of results (Burbidge et al., 1988). It is given by the following function: $\mathrm{IHS}\left(Y\right)=\log \hspace{0.17em}\left[Y+\sqrt{\left(Y^2+1\right)}\right]$.

5 We also modeled count outcomes for misdemeanor arrest, felony arrests, and traffic stops using a Poisson fixed-effects regression (with clustered standard errors to account for overdispersion) and reached similar conclusions. Results are available upon request.

6 Level change computed as: $\beta *\mathit{\text{Dep var mean*}}\frac{\mathit{\text{District pop mean}}}{\mathrm{10,000}}= 0.21*1.57*\frac{\mathrm{123,111}}{\mathrm{10,000}}$.

7 Because arrests for domestic incidents tend to be less proactive, we experimented with excluding domestic incidents from our measure of misdemeanor arrest rates and the ratio of felony to misdemeanor arrests. + Our findings were not sensitive to these modifications. Results are available upon request.

8 Level changes computed as: $\beta *\mathit{\text{Dep var mean}}*\frac{\mathit{\text{District pop mean}}}{\mathrm{10,000}}$. For majority-Black districts: $-0.59*1.71*\frac{\mathrm{123,111}}{\mathrm{10,000}}$. For minority-Black districts: $-0.22*032*\frac{123,111}{10,000}$.