Improving police services: Evidence from the French Quarter Task Force

This study sheds light on the improvement of police services by examining the French Quarter Task Force (FQTF) - an anti-crime program in New Orleans' French Quarter. First, we provide new evidence that increasing police presence is effective in crime prevention. Our difference-in-differences estimates suggest that the FQTF, which increased police visibility in the French Quarter, reduced robberies, aggravated assaults, and thefts by 37.4%, 16.9%, and 13%, respectively. Second, our findings imply that the proper use of monitoring and incentive strategies has the potential to further improve police services. Exploiting the program's change in management, we find that providing officers with more monitoring and performance incentives led the FQTF to reduce robberies by 22.12 and aggravated assaults by 5.56 each quarter.