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Learning the ropes: General experience, task-Specific experience, and the output of police officers

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  • DeAngelo, Gregory
  • Owens, Emily G.

Abstract

We estimate the role that law enforcement officer experience has on the probability of punishment, using a unique data set of tickets issued by the Idaho State Police linked to human resource records. All else equal, officers issue fewer tickets earlier in their career than later in their career. Quasi-exogenous shocks to an officer’s task-specific experience, generated by law changes, cause a temporary reduction in the frequency with which a subset of troopers “use” those laws, creating disparities in the likelihood that individual citizens are cited for law violations. The reduction in ticketing in response to a law change is largest for newer troopers, and law changes later in a trooper’s career have a smaller effect on his use of that law.

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  • DeAngelo, Gregory & Owens, Emily G., 2017. "Learning the ropes: General experience, task-Specific experience, and the output of police officers," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 368-377.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:142:y:2017:i:c:p:368-377
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2017.08.008
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    Cited by:

    1. Gregory DeAngelo & Rainita Narender & Rustam Romaniuc, 2024. "Nudging law enforcement: evidence from low priority initiatives," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 58(2), pages 321-354, October.
    2. DeAngelo, Gregory & Owens, Emily G., 2017. "Learning the ropes: General experience, task-Specific experience, and the output of police officers," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 368-377.
    3. Gregory DeAngelo & Bryan C. McCannon, 2020. "Psychological game theory in public choice," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 182(1), pages 159-180, January.
    4. Abrahams, Scott, 2020. "Officer differences in traffic stops of minority drivers," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    5. Ajit Mishra & Andrew Samuel, 2018. "Law Enforcement And Wrongful Arrests With Endogenously (In)Competent Officers," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 56(2), pages 1417-1436, April.
    6. DeAngelo Gregory J. & Gittings R. Kaj & Ross Amanda, 2018. "Police Incentives, Policy Spillovers, and the Enforcement of Drug Crimes," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 14(1), pages 1-29, March.
    7. Evan M. Calford & Gregory DeAngelo, 2023. "Ambiguity and enforcement," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 26(2), pages 304-338, April.

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