Works in Progress


Police Violence Under Community Policing Reform with Jessica LaVoice

This paper explores the impact of community oriented policing strategies of incidence of police violence in the US. Public interest in police conduct has been renewed recently due to various incidences of police brutality and use of fatal force. A community policing approach allows police and citizens to frequently interact with each other for reasons other than criminal investigation. The Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) created a funding program to support the hiring of new police officers trained in community oriented policing. We use this grant to study whether increased funding for new police officers and training in community oriented policing impacts to incidence of police violence. Our results show that the hiring and training of these new officers has no effect on overall fatal encounters by police, or on fatal encounters with police by race.


Reproductive Health Choices under Political Uncertainty

I provide a descriptive analysis of the impact of political changes on contraceptive choices among women. Over the period 2012-2021, a number of political changes have affected reproductive access both nationwide and in the three states in this study, Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire. Relevant political changes at the federal level include the election of Donald Trump in 2016, the appointment and public judiciary hearings of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court in October of 2018, and the death or Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 2020. Each of these instances had significant news coverage and relevance to the reproductive healthcare landscape. Additionally, states have enacted specific policies that expand or restrict reproductive rights over this period. I use confidential patient data from Planned Parenthood locations to study changes in contraceptive use following these political changes. I find that women pursue Long Acting Reversible Contraceptives (LARC) at a 4% higher rate following the election of Donald Trump. I do not find parallel increases for the other federal political upheavals. I also find a decrease in the use of LARC following the enactment of progressive policies in Vermont and Maine.