Does concern about local crime affect people’s trust in the police?

Abstract

Trust in institutions is one of the central pillars of the stability of democracies. By exploring a unique database indicative of confidence on Brazilian institutions, this study investigates the effect of concern in local crime on confidence in the police. We explore data from the Confidence in Justice Survey conducted for the period from 2013 to 2014 at the state of Sao Paulo. Our identification strategy is the two-stage least square model, with an individual’s distance to police stations as the instrumental variable. We find that an increase in the total crimes registered reduces confidence in the police. Such results are particularly more apparent in crimes like drug dealing and rape. Exploring heterogeneities in the results, we find that black people are more sensitive to crime rate changes with respect to security, even while living in similar neighborhoods as white citizens. Results also show that those who had prior experience with the police are less sensitive, independent of the quality of police work at the time.