Replication Data for: Exploitative Revenues, Law Enforcement, and the Quality of Government Services

We take up the question of whether police collection of fees, fines, and civilly forfeited assets affects the quality of other police functions (namely, whether or not it affects the rate at which police clear violent and property crimes). Using crime clearance data from the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program and municipal finance data from the Census of Governments, we find that police departments in cities that collect a greater share of their revenue from fees, fines, and forfeitures solve violent and property crimes at significantly lower rates, and that the effect on violent crime clearance is more salient in smaller cities where police officers' assignments tend not to be highly specialized. Our results suggest that institutional changes -- such as decreasing municipal government reliance on police-collected revenue -- are important for changing police behavior and improving the provision of public safety.