Do more eyes on the street reduce Crime? Evidence from Chicago’s safe passage program

03/01/2019 Scholarship

By Daniel McMillen, Ignacio Sarmiento-Barbieri, Ruchi Singh & Campaign Zero

Study: Findings suggest that the Chicago Safe Passage program is an efficient and cost effective alternative way of policing with direct effects on crime and student’s outcomes. Exploiting both spatial and temporal variation in the implementation of the program, we find that the presence of guards results in lower levels of crime, with violent crime declining by 14% on average.