Publication Date
Spring 5-3-2025
Document Type
Student Project
First Advisor
Wilcox, Virginia
Degree Name
B.A. (Bachelor of Arts)
Department
Department of Economics
Abstract
This study quantitatively assesses the effect of fully deputized private police (FDPP) on nine measures of crime on 770 American university campuses over thirteen years. Building on the analysis of FDPP found in Stringham (2015), this study offers a public choice analysis of the incentives resulting from private ownership, positing that officers serving in such systems face systemically different incentives than their public counterparts, leading to a more vigilant and consumer-focused security posture. This increases the likelihood that criminals will be apprehended, which thereby reduces the expected utility of criminality, leading to fewer such instances. By building a unique dataset of 13,090 individual datapoints, and controlling for student population, region, urbanization level, number of police officers, public or private status, and Pell grant recipiency, this study compares state-controlled police and FDPP using nine standard ordinary least squares regressions. The direction of the coefficients supports the theoretical framework, but the study is challenged by limited statistical significance among the variables denoting public and private police systems. The present study gives highly measured support to the contention that FDPP reduces campus crime rates.
Recommended Citation
Marquis, Cruz, “Public and Private Police and Their Impact on Crime: Evidence from American Universities” (2025). Honors Capstones.
Suggested Citation
Marquis, Cruz, “Public and Private Police and Their Impact on Crime: Evidence from American Universities” (2025). Honors Capstones.
