A recent study claims so—but don’t be so sure.
Does egregious police violence hurt community trust? A recent working paper from a group of economists led by Harvard’s Desmond Ang suggests the answer is yes, but readers should be skeptical.
The paper examines what it identifies as civilian behavior in the wake of George Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis last year, comparing changes in shootings (which skyrocketed) to 911 calls (which were flat or fell) across eight cities. This pattern, the paper’s authors argue, shows that “high-profile acts of police violence may severely impair civilian trust and crime-reporting.”
