By Gov1 Staff
WASHINGTON — Mayors’ partisan affiliations have no detectable impact on crime rates, police employment, or arrests in U.S. cities, according to a new study from George Washington University researchers.
The study, co-authored by Christopher Warshaw, a political science professor, analyzed data from nearly 400 cities over 30 years. Using advanced research methods, the researchers found no causal link between whether a mayor was a Democrat or Republican and outcomes like police spending, crime statistics, or arrests.
Published in Science Advances, the study, titled “The Partisanship of Mayors Has No Detectable Effect on Police Spending, Police Employment, Crime, or Arrests,” upends longstanding assumptions that political affiliations of mayors significantly influence local public safety policies.
“Overall, the results from our multimethod analyses indicate that local partisan politics has little causal impact on crime and policing,” the research team writes in the article abstract.
Read the full research article, “The partisanship of mayors has no detectable effect on police spending, police employment, crime, or arrests”
Gov1 is using generative AI to create some content that is edited and fact-checked by our editors.