The Ferguson effect is the theory that an increase in violent crime rates in a community is caused by reduced proactive policing due to the community's distrust and hostility towards police. The term was coined in November 2014 by Doyle Sam Dotson III, the chief of the St. Louis police, who attributed a local uptick in crime to officer fatigue from months of policing the Ferguson unrest that followed the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, saying "the criminal element is feeling empowered". It was popularized by Heather Mac Donald in a May 2015 op-ed in The Wall Street Journal that attributed rising violent crime in some U.S. cities to police pulling back amid "agitation" against law enforcement. The existence of the Ferguson effect is disputed. Many published studies report contradictory findings concerning whether there is a change in crime rates, number of 911 calls, homicides, and proactive policing. Furthermore, the effect and influence of the portrayal of police brutality in the media are also contested.
Background
The term was coined by St. Louis police chief Sam Dotson in November 2014, in remarks reported by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Citing rising assaults and robberies, falling arrests, and officer fatigue from months of policing the protests in Ferguson that followed the shooting of Michael Brown that August, Dotson said, "It's the Ferguson effect," adding that "the criminal element is feeling empowered by the environment."
The term became popular after Heather Mac Donald used it in a May 29, 2015 op-ed in The Wall Street Journal. The op-ed stated the rise in crime rates in some U.S. cities was due to "agitation" against police forces. She also argued, "Unless the demonization of law enforcement ends, the liberating gains in urban safety will be lost," quoting a number of police officers who said police morale was at an all-time low. In 2015, Rahm Emanuel, the mayor of Chicago, suggested that nationwide backlash against police brutality led to officers disengaging, which, in turn, led to violent crime increasing.
In May 2016, FBI Director James Comey used the term "viral video effect" when commenting on significant increases in homicide rates in many large U.S. cities in the first half of the year. Comey specifically singled out the cities of Chicago (where murders were up 54 percent from 2015) and Las Vegas. The term was also used by Chuck Rosenberg, director of the DEA.
In October 2016, the Ferguson effect was cited in a case in which a Chicago police officer was beaten for several minutes by a suspect but chose not to draw her service weapon, worried of the media attention that would come if she were to shoot the suspect.
Research
Crime There exists a large volume of research contesting whether the Ferguson effect exists. Some studies, such as a 2017 study, found that violent crime was elevated and rose more in cities where concern about police violence was greatest. More specifically, a February 2016 University of Colorado Boulder study looked at crime statistics from 81 U.S. cities and found no evidence of a Ferguson effect with respect to overall, violent, or property crime, but identified an increase in robbery rates after the shooting of Michael Brown (while these rates decreased before this shooting). The study concluded that "any Ferguson Effect is constrained largely to cities with historically high levels of violence, a large composition of black residents, and socioeconomic disadvantages," indicating a Ferguson effect may exist, but only in certain regions, while other studies, such as another 2017 study, showed that after the shooting of Michael Brown, police traffic stops declined while hit rates went up on police searches in the state of Missouri. The study found no relationship between changes in police activity and crime rates, in direct contradiction to the previous study as it is concentrated in a region with historically high levels of violence.
Then again, a June 2016 University of Missouri study by Rosenfeld, published by the National Institute of Justice found there was an "unprecedented" 16.8% increase in homicides in 56 large cities over the course of 2015, and examined the Ferguson effect as one of three plausible explanations recommended for further research. Rosenfeld stated that "the only explanation that gets the timing right is a version of the Ferguson effect" and that it is his "leading hypothesis". On the other hand, a 2019 research study titled "De-policing as a consequence of the so-called 'Ferguson effect,'" a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, John M MacDonald, explored the relationship between arrests, de-policing, and homicide rates as a result of the police brutality in Ferguson, Missouri. This paper, referencing the Rosenfield and Wallman study, did not find a correlation between arrests and homicide rates in support of de-policing happening. No evidence was found to indicate the increase in homicides rates in 2015 were due to a change in the number of arrests, because the same police departments that exhibited an increase in arrests also resulted in an increase in homicides.
A study released in the spring of 2019 by a U.S. attorney general and another American attorney titled "Police-Worn Body Cameras: An Antidote to the 'Ferguson effect?'" researched the effects of implementing policy that would require U.S. police officers to wear body cameras as a means of counteracting the Ferguson effect. The study emphasized that the addition of police-worn body cameras could be an antidote to the de-policing that may be occurring as a result of the Ferguson effect, citing the theory of self-awareness. However, the study also brings attention to criticisms against the implementation of police-worn body cameras as a violation of privacy rights concerning bystanders in the video as well as the statutory protection of police recordings. Similarly, in April 2018, professors from Michigan State University and University of Nebraska at Omaha, Scott E. Wolfe and Justin Nix, conducted a study titled "Management-level officers' experiences with the Ferguson effect" in an effort to study factors that result from the Ferguson effect among police managers. This study was conducted by means of a survey in which police officers responded to a series of attributes that ranged from positive to negative in violent incidents. Police officers, both officers in the line of duty as well as those in management positions, are likely to express traits such as "less willingness to be proactive, reduced motivation, less job enjoyment, and a belief that crime will ultimately rise as officers 'de-police' attributed to the Ferguson effect. Thus, the basis of both of these studies is founded on the assumption that the Ferguson effect is real, instigating further research based on a contested theory.
On a different note, the following two studies focused their research efforts on the number of police reports, indicative of a change in policing behavior. In 2018, USA Today reported a sharp increase (63%) in Baltimore homicides after the local death of Freddie Grey in April 2015, showing 527 occurring in the three years prior, versus 859 in the three years following. This was accompanied by police taking an apparent blind eye to ordinary street crime, with a nearly 50% reduction in police reports of spotting potential violations themselves. In June 2020, Harvard economist Roland Fryer and Tanaya Devi released a paper showing evidence of the Ferguson effect. Across five cities where a deadly shooting that went viral preceded an investigation into crime and policing, they found that the violent crime rate increased, resulting in an additional 900 homicides and 34,000 excess felonies across two years. They suggest that this was caused by changes in the quantity of policing. Other theories, such as changes in community trust, were not supported by the data.
Looking more closely at the effects of police brutality and media coverage, a study titled "A 'Ferguson Effect' on 2016 Presidential Vote Preference? Findings from a Framing Experiment Examining 'Shy Voters' and Cues Related to Policing and Social Unrest," Wozniak et al. examines the effect of sociopolitical unrest and the rhetoric of crime on voters' decision in the 2020 presidential election. This study was conducted by determining whether showing an image that depicted police violence to a voter would influence their decision in the polls. The results of this study found that seeing an image of a police officer and a civilian increased the probability that an individual would exhibit voting preference and showing an image of aggravated and violent police officers would drastically change the voted-for candidate. However, in April 2019, Grace Ketron, in affiliation with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, published the study "How Media Covered Police Shootings During and After Ferguson: Framing Analysis of Officer-Involved Shootings In 2014 and 2016." In this research, The New York Times, Fox News, and the Associated Press were examined as far as their portrayal of police shootings after the shootings of Michael Brown and Terence Crutcher in an effort to determine whether the media coverage of the police shootings was biased as it pertained to the role media plays in public perception. Her results show that the three news sources presented the shootings in a straightforward manner, using a neutral tone and equally representing both sides. Moreover, in September 2016, professors from Arizona State University, University of Nebraska at Omaha, and University of Louisville published a study on the change in number of violent assaults and murders of U.S. police officers due to the increase in anti-police sentiment following the events in Ferguson, Missouri. Despite reporters' claims that an increase in the number of murders of officers in the line of duty was due to the increased media attention on the "war on cops," the results of this research study found no evidence indicating an increase in the number of murders of U.S. police officers.
On the flip side, in January 2017, Campbell et al. released an article titled "Is the Number of Citizens Fatally Shot by Police Increasing in the Post-Ferguson Era?" examining the long-term change in the number of U.S. citizens killed by a fatal gunshot fired by police officers in the line of duty after Michael Brown Jr.'s death in Ferguson, Missouri. This study also found no significant evidence indicating a long-term increasing or decreasing pattern in fatally shot citizens by police officers. The number of fatally shot citizens is unstable with variable fluctuations in the short time spans. Furthermore, a study conducted by Galovski et al. titled "Exposure to Violence During Ferguson Protests: Mental Health Effects for Law Enforcement and Community Members: Effects of Exposure to Violence in Ferguson" in August 2016 seeking to observe whether there exists a relationship between closeness to community violence and the mental health of both police officers in the line of duty and all other community members. Closer proximity to community violence results in changes in mental health. Community members were more affected than police officers and Black members of the community were more affected from the violence in Ferguson than white community members.