How Valuable are Civil Liberties? Evidence from Gang Injunctions, Crime, and Housing Prices in Southern California Emily Owens1 Michelle D. Mioduszewski2 Christopher J. Bates2 February 2019 Abstract Despite the increased use of civil gang injunctions in California since the late 1980’s, little is known about their effectiveness on crime, and even less is known about their broader social impact on targeted and surrounding communities. This study assesses the impact of civil gang injunctions on crime and housing prices in the Southern California region, providing evidence on both the crime reducing benefits of these policies and the costs imposed on affected communities. We utilize a geographic regression discontinuity design and three datasets to answer this question: Zillow housing data, gang injunction attributes and shapefiles, and crime data from the Southern California Crime Study. Focusing on the sharp discontinuity of targeted police enforcement within the gang injunction boundaries, and temporal variation in when the injunctions were imposed, we find limited evidence suggesting that crimes within safety zones, consistent with existing research. In spite of the increase in safety, home values appear to fall discreetly at the borders of the injunction. We conclude that this reflects individual willingness- to-pay for the civil liberties affected by the injunction. The magnitude of this net decline, roughly 3% of home values between 2002 and 2015, casts doubt on the assertion that gang injunctions are a cost-effective way to reduce crime. 1 Department of Criminology, Law and Society and Department of Economics, University of California, Irvine, Irvine CA 92697.
[email protected] 2 Department of Criminology, Law and Society, University of California, Irvine, Irvine CA 92697.