Premium
The political economy of enforcer liability for wrongful police stops
Author(s) -
Friehe Tim,
Mungan Murat C.
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
journal of public economic theory
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.809
H-Index - 32
eISSN - 1467-9779
pISSN - 1097-3923
DOI - 10.1111/jpet.12472
Subject(s) - liability , politics , voting , enforcement , economics , subject (documents) , law enforcement , law and economics , law , business , political science , computer science , library science
This article questions whether excessive policing practices can persist in an environment where law enforcement policies are subject to political pressures. Specifically, it considers a setting where the police decide whether to conduct stops based on the suspiciousness of a person's behavior and the potential liability for conducting a wrongful stop. We establish that the liability level that results in a voting equilibrium is smaller than optimal, and consequently, that excessive policing practices emerge in equilibrium.