David Kirk (University of Oxford)

Abstract Recent high-profile cases of police violence in the US, notably the murder of George Floyd, a Black man, by White Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in May of 2020, have prompted a reckoning on racial injustice and police brutality in the US. In that context, this study explores geographic and temporal variation in police use-of-force and its implications for neighborhood violence. Leveraging data from the Invisible Institute’s Citizens Police Data Project, the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods community survey, the Chicago Police Department, and the US Census, we examine the relationship between alleged police use of force and violent crime in Chicago neighborhoods over the last 25 years. We then explore the mediating role of legal cynicism, a cultural frame in which people perceive the law, and the police in particular, as illegitimate, unresponsive, and ill-equipped to ensure public safety. Findings suggest that police violence and misconduct foster neighborhood violence by eroding the rule of law. Solutions to police violence will be discussed.