Do Patterns of Zero-Tolerance Policing Impact an Agency’s Legitimacy? A Study of 105 U.S. Agencies

Abstract

Zero-tolerance policing (defined here as the increased use of arrests for minor or misdemeanor crimes) proliferated in the 1990s and was adopted by many agencies nationwide during that period. Some have suggested that this policing strategy left a deep and lasting impression on communities, in particular, reducing police legitimacy in these communities in the 2000s. However, little research has formally tested these claims. To explore this hypothesis, this thesis explores the impact of long-term misdemeanor arrest practices using trajectories of misdemeanor arrests developed by Lum and Vovak (2018) on proxy measures of police legitimacy (as there are no direct measures that currently exist). Four variables to approximate jurisdiction-level legitimacy were used: violent crime, violence against officers, officer-involved shootings, and oversight/accountability agreements. With one exception, this study finds that misdemeanor arrest patterns did not significantly predict legitimacy when measured by these variables. Despite considerable limitations in the use of proxy measures, this study highlights the importance of police agencies regularly collecting jurisdiction-level perception-based police legitimacy data to better understand the impact of significant policies they implement.