research

articles

Limiting aggressive policing can reduce police and civilian violence
World Development, 2022: 105961, p. 1-18.

Abstract Governments in the Americas rely on aggressive policing tactics to fight crime, despite scant evidence of impact. While recent studies depict militarized policing as a driver of violence, few governments have reconsidered their use of it. What impact does a restriction on aggressive policing have on violence, and why? This paper examines limits on police use of force and how they can be implemented to reduce both police and civilian violence. I argue that reforms that require internal, non-police oversight can be effective institutional constraints, minimizing police violence. In settings where organized crime is widespread, these limits can have spillover effects and further decrease civilian violence by (1) slowing the territorial diffusion of criminal conflict and (2) making conflict more predictable. I test these claims by examining an abrupt limit on police raids in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I find that limiting raids – militarized police strikes targeting criminal gangs and communities under their control – led to a 66% decrease in police killings and a 58% decrease in homicides. The effects were concentrated in police precincts where rival criminal groups are in close proximity. Limiting raids did not lead police to be more violent during ordinary patrolling duties, and did not affect property crimes. The implication is that restraining police use of force in high-violence settings may save lives and be no worse than hard-on-crime strategies.


How do Covid-19 stay-at-home restrictions affect crime? Evidence from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
EconomiA, 2022: 147-163. (with Ana Paula Pellegrino).

Abstract How do changes in mobility impact crime? Using police precinct-level daily crime statistics and shootings data from the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, we estimate that extortion, theft, and robberies decrease by at least 41.6% following COVID-19 mandated stay-at-home orders and changes in mobility in March 2020. Conversely, we find no change in violent crimes, despite fewer people being on the streets. To address the relationship between crime and mobility, we use cellphone data and split the precincts into subgroups by pre-Covid-19-related restrictions mobility quintiles. We estimate a similar average decrease in extortion regardless of a precinct’s previous activity level, but find that the decrease in theft and robberies is substantially higher for the more mobile precincts while it disappears for the least mobile precincts. Using daily cellphone mobility data aggregated at the police precinct level, we find that changes in mobility while the stay-at-home order is in place only have a meaningful effect on robberies, which increase in likelihood when a precinct’s mobility ranking is higher than the previous day. Together, these results suggest that the stay-at-home order and associated decline in mobility strongly affected extortion and property crimes while not interfering with the dynamics of violent crime. These findings support the hypothesis that violent and property crime follow different dynamics, particularly where there is a bigger impact of organized criminal groups.


working papers

How criminal governance undermines elections

  • Recipient of the Franklin L. Burdette/Pi Sigma Alpha Best Paper Award, American Political Science Association (2022)
  • Recipient of the Best Paper Award from the Conflict Processes Section, American Political Science Association (2022)
  • Recipient of the Elinor and Vincent Ostrom Prize for Best Graduate Student Paper and Presentation, Public Choice Society (2022)
Abstract How does criminal governance affect elections? Existing accounts explore the consequences of criminal involvement in politics, but have not thoroughly examined how such groups exert their influence. I argue that criminal groups undermine elections through two mechanisms: (1) gatekeeping prevents rival candidates from accessing voters and (2) corralling influences voter choice. I use a natural experiment that leverages exogenous variation in voter assignment to voting booths and a novel dataset on criminal governance to test my theory in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I show that gatekeeping restricts the candidate pool while corralling yields more votes for the local leading candidate. Together, these mechanisms decrease electoral competition. I illustrate the logic underpinning the mechanisms using qualitative data based on interviews and voter complaints. These findings bring together the literatures on clientelism and criminal governance by demonstrating that criminal groups leverage the power they derive from governing to sway elections.


Organized crime and voter mobilization

  • Recipient of the Best Paper Award from the Subnational Politics and Society Section, Latin American Studies Association (2020)
  • In the news: Pindograma, Piauí
Abstract It is well documented that criminal groups undermine elections. Yet there is substantial variation in the techniques that different types of groups use. If a criminal group is getting involved in an election, what resources will they deploy, and who will they target? Drawing from the classic literature on comparative advantage, this project presents a theory of how criminal capital predicts electoral strategy. I focus on groups that “sell protection” and their two primary capabilities: collection capacity and protection capacity. I argue that protection rackets have efficiency advantages vis-a-vis other groups when diversifying into industries that monitor or coerce people. One such industry is voter mobilization. I test this theory in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where multiple types of criminal organizations are present. Drawing from granular data on voting, I use a natural experiment to compare voting under a protection racket with voting under other criminal regime types or without criminal presence. My results suggest that protection rackets are more effective at voter mobilization. Qualitative evidence, drawing from anonymous voter complaints, suggests that protection rackets are more likely to leverage their collection and protection capacity when getting votes. This theory brings together an interdisciplinary literature on industrial organization, voter mobilization, and criminal governance to explain why different types of criminal groups choose certain electoral strategies.


Worksite sampling: an underused but practical tool to sample hard-to-reach populations in political science

Abstract Despite an increasing reliance on survey data, finding and sampling understudied populations remains a serious obstacle in political science research. This is particularly true for studies where we lack a high-quality sampling frame, such as conflict or rural settings, or informal areas in the developing world. This paper offers suggestions for how to find and interview these hard-to-reach groups at their place of business rather than their homes, using a technique called worksite sampling. I argue that worksite sampling is underleveraged in political science, not just as a tool to find people, but also as a technique to improve response quality and better protect respondent safety. This paper explains the tradeoffs of using worksite sampling to find people, to elicit truthful answers, and to conduct a safer survey. This paper illustrates these suggestions with evidence from an in-person survey conducted in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which used worksite sampling to interview bus drivers and fare collectors about criminal governance in their neighborhoods.


book project

Machine Gun Politics: Why Politicians Cooperate with Organized Crime

My book project demonstrates that politicians often benefit from—and even seek out—deals with criminal organizations. Public officials’ willingness to engage with violent, illicit actors around elections drives three questions underpinning my research for this book:

  • Why would a politician collude with criminal organizations?
  • When do the benefits of collusion outweigh the risks?
  • Which candidates are more likely to strike electoral bargains with criminal groups?
  • What are the electoral and welfare consequences of collusion?

I develop a theory of candidate-criminal group cooperation, arguing that striking deals with criminal groups can be an unexpectedly successful electoral strategy for many types of politicians. I explain variation in collusive deal-making between politicians and criminal groups and enumerate two mechanisms through which criminal groups deliver votes: gatekeeping and corralling. I create an original dataset on criminal governance and leverage a natural experiment to closely examine the returns to criminal-candidate collusion in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. My mixed-methods book manuscript draws from 18 months of in-person field research in Rio de Janeiro, dozens of candidate interviews, and an in-person survey with residents of criminally-governed communities using worksite sampling.


in progress

Strategic Cartography: How Map-Making Enables or Obstructs Social Inclusion (with Ana Paula Pellegrino)

Abstract The poor are often excluded from official maps. Developing countries, particularly their urban areas, have massive inequalities in the quality and comprehensiveness of official maps, affecting the unmapped’s access to downstream social services and resources. How does “putting people on the map” affect inequality? Can low-income maps and registries be used as policy tools to counteract the challenges of living in a low-income settlement?
This project argues that informal settlement registries are a policy tool that can reduce inequality in low-income areas. We substantiate these claims in a two-step nested analysis. First, we conduct a micro-level analysis of 1,074 neighborhoods in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil that were “put on the map” at different points in time. This within-city analysis lets us hold external factors constant and compare development outcomes in different neighborhoods. The rollout of the informal settlement registry began in 1981 and is updated periodically, which also lets us estimate the cumulative effects of “being mapped” over time on inequality. Second, we conduct a meso-level analysis of 152 medium and large cities in Brazil, and the determinants of whether or not they have an informal settlement registry. We use this study to eliminate alternative explanations about the reasons for adoption of an informal settlement registry, and to show how municipal trajectories of poverty and inequality change post-adoption. These two empirical strategies consider variation at the individual, neighborhood, and municipal levels. They show how including informal settlements on the map can change the life trajectory of those living in poverty and be a powerful inequality-reduction tool – if incumbents choose to deploy it.


Under the Radar: Estimating underreporting of gender-based violence to the police (with Isabella Montini)

Abstract Gender-based violence (GBV) remains underreported to law enforcement, obscuring the true prevalence of violence against women and limiting institutional responses. While existing research often attributes underreporting to personal concerns, the role of broader institutional factors is less understood. Where and why are victims more likely to report gender-based violence to the police? Under what conditions can third party reporting channels mitigate the underreporting of GBV to the police? We study gender-based violence in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, analyzing 3 million calls for help to an independent, anonymous tip line between 2008 and 2023. We geolocate and merge these calls with police records and precinct-level socioeconomic data to analyze divergent temporal and spatial reporting patterns, contrasting the frequency of gender-based violence reported to 1) the police or 2) the anonymous helpline.
Our analysis offers three main insights. First, we estimate GBV underreporting to the police. We use a novel bounding exercise that contrasts police and anonymous reporting data, which highlights the specific spatial and criminal characteristics that make types of GBV particularly vulnerable to underreporting. Second, we identify key predictors of GBV. We conduct a large-N analysis of granular predictors of violence against women over time, including socioeconomic conditions, general levels of violence, and other crimes that frequently co-occur with GBV, such as drug trafficking and corruption of minors. Third, we further identify interactive effects that exacerbate GBV. We focus on areas with high levels of police violence, violent crime, and criminal governance, shedding light on how GBV is reported in the most vulnerable areas, where state presence and governance are most contested or inadequate. We substantiate this with qualitative evidence about women in marginalized regions (like Brazil’s favelas) who often rely on social services rather than law enforcement to seek help. This paper’s contribution is twofold: first, we systematically document not only the existence of GBV reporting gaps to the police, but that these gaps are wider in marginalized communities. Then, we show the observable risk factors that could be used by policymakers to mitigate these gaps.


What electoral behaviors do voters complain about? A new dataset on electoral malfeasance in Brazil (poster presented at the 2024 GLD Annual Conference)

A call of duty? Police force formation in Brazil (with Ana Paula Pellegrino and Lucas Novaes)