The debate around improving safety in cities often revolves around whether this means deploying more police or not. In New York City, the recent mayoral election had certain candidates promise an increase in police patrols, while another candidate proposed the creation of a non-police unit to deal with certain issue (homelessness and mental health).

But do these non-police approaches work? A recent paper by Blattman, Duncan, Lessing and Tobon (2024) (“BDLT”) tackles this issue with a fascinating research design and find somewhat surprising answers!