Abstract

In 2017, California officially became a sanctuary state following the passage of Senate Bill 54, which limits state and local police cooperation with federal immigration authorities. Following the passage of SB54, critics worried that crime rates would rise. What impact did this policy have on crime in California? The current study, the first of its kind, addresses this question. Using a state-level panel containing violent and property offenses from 1970 through 2018, we employ a synthetic control group design to approximate California’s crime rates had SB54 not been enacted. We interpret the gap between California’s 2018 crime rate and its synthetic counterfactual as SB54’s impact. Results show that SB54’s impact on violent and property crime is neither robust nor sufficiently large to rule out a null effect. Sensitivity analyses buttress this finding. We discuss the implications of the findings for crime policy in the U.S.

摘要

2017年，参议院第54号法案通过后，加利福尼亚正式成为庇护州，该法案限制了州和地方警察与联邦移民当局的合作。随着SB54法案的通过，批评家担心犯罪率会上升。这项政策对加州的犯罪有何影响？当前的研究尚属首次，旨在解决这一问题。我们使用了一个包含1970年至2018年的暴力和财产犯罪的州级小组，我们采用了一个综合对照组的设计，以近似于未颁布SB54的加利福尼亚的犯罪率。我们将加州2018年犯罪率与其综合反事实之间的差距解释为SB54的影响。结果表明，SB54对暴力和财产犯罪的影响既不稳固也不足以排除无效影响。敏感性分析支持了这一发现。我们讨论了调查结果对美国犯罪政策的影响