Reform and Community Level Participation: The Overturn of Stop, Question, and Frisk (SQF) in New York City

Abstract

Though there has been a wealth of work showing that negative experiences with government lead to less political participation, there is little understanding of how to address this problem. That is, it is unclear whether reform to negative government behavior can also address the negative consequences of that behavior. This paper uses the overturn of Stop, Question, and Frisk in New York City to show that despite a significant change to police behavior, having experienced a high level of policing continues to depress voter turnout. Furthermore, it uses residents who have moved within New York City after the change in policy to show that residing in a community that was heavily policed continues to influence voter behavior, even if an individual never directly experienced high levels of policing. This is in line with communities both being changed by police policies and community transmission of norms around participation.