American Economic Review
ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)
Community Engagement and Public Safety: Evidence from Crime Enforcement Targeting Immigrants
American Economic Review
(pp. 3076–3109)
Abstract
We study the role of victim reporting in the production of public safety. We examine the Secure Communities program, a crime-reduction policy that involved police in detecting unauthorized immigrants and increased deportation fears in immigrant communities. We find that the policy reduced the likelihood that Hispanic victims report crimes to police and increased offending against Hispanics. The number of reported crimes is unchanged, masking these opposing effects. We show that reduced reporting drives the offending increase and provide the first elasticity of offending to victim reporting in the literature, calculating that a 10 percent decline in reporting increases offending by 7.9 percent.Citation
Gonçalves, Felipe, Elisa Jácome, and Emily Weisburst. 2026. "Community Engagement and Public Safety: Evidence from Crime Enforcement Targeting Immigrants." American Economic Review 116 (8): 3076–3109. DOI: 10.1257/aer.20250305Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- J15 Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
- K37 Immigration Law
- K42 Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law