Collective Bargaining Rights, Policing, and Civilian Deaths

Using an event-study design, we examine whether states' introduction of duty-to-bargain requirements for police unions led to meaningful changes in civilians killed by law enforcement. We find that the introduction of collective bargaining rights significantly increases the number of civilians killed by police, particularly among non-White civilians, while having limited effects on officer safety. Our results indicate that the adoption of bargaining rights for law enforcement can explain 14 percent of all non-White civilian deaths by legal intervention between 1959 and 1988. Given our findings, the idea that police unions exacerbate violence is empirically grounded. (JEL J15, J51, J52, K42)