An evaluation of the Federal Legal Services Program: Evidence from crime rates and property values

Abstract

This paper uses the city level roll-out of legal service grants to evaluate their effects on crime. Using Uniform Crime Reports from 1960 to 1985, the results show that there is a short run increase of 7 percent in crimes reported and also a 13 percent increase in crimes cleared by arrest. Results show an increase in the staffing of police officers in cities that received legal services. These cities are also associated with having higher median property values 10 years later. This supports the narrative that legal services changed police behavior through litigation or threats of litigation.

Civil Asset Forfeiture, Crime, and Police Incentives: Evidence From the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984

“…We use arrests as a measure of police effort because police officers can directly decide whether or not to arrest an individual. Prior literature has documented that police may change their effort level (arrest behavior) in response to changes in financial incentives or oversight (Mas, 2006;Shi, 2009, Cunningham, 2016.…”

Changes in Family Structure and Welfare Participation Since the 1960s: The Role of Legal Services

“…In contrast, the LSP handled 282,000 cases in 1968 and over a million by 1971. The average LSP center had five lawyers, each working hundreds of cases per year (Cunningham 2016).…”

“…7 Thanks to early endorsements from the American Bar Association and the American Trial Lawyers' Association, legal aid societies received about 40 percent of the initial grants in order to expand services or open new facilities. Law schools facilitated the rollout by providing cheap labor in the form of newly trained lawyers, designing new curricula in poverty law, and sometimes operating LSP offices directly (Johnson 2014, Cunningham 2016.…”

“…Data on federal legal service grants funded by the OEO come from the National Archives Community Action Program files originally compiled in Cunningham (2016). We created an LSP treatment indicator equal to one starting in the year that counties received their first grant for "legal 14 We use population counts down to age 10 because nonmarital births are recorded for women "under 15."…”

“…Rosenzweig (1999) argues that family structure, a long-term decision, should not be strongly affected by short-run changes in benefits, andMcKinnish (2008) provides empirical support in the case of AFDC and fertility by comparing short and long differences.36 Cunningham (2016) shows that LSP establishment led to higher arrest rates by improving community/police relations and increasing crime reporting. We find no evidence that these changes altered sex ratios or men's earnings differentially in LSP counties in the way that prison policy did in the 1980s.…”