Jens Ludwig
Jens Ludwig is the Edwin A. and Betty L. Bergman Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago, and Director of the University of Chicago’s Crime Lab. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Duke University.
Voting History
Policing and public safety
Increasing police budgets will improve public safety.
| Vote | Confidence |
|---|---|
| Agree | 7 |
| Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
|---|---|
| Agree | 7 |
Increasing social service budgets (e.g. housing, health, education) will improve public safety.
| Vote | Confidence |
|---|---|
| Agree | 3 |
| Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
|---|---|
| Agree | 8 |
Comments
We have good evidence that SOME forms of social services can reduce the sorts of crime that drive social harms (violence in particular). But the public conversation right now treats all social services as being equivalent in their violence-prevention impacts, which (together with the inevitable big-city politics) creates questions about what sorts of services would actually get funded in practice.
Increasing accountability for police misconduct will improve public safety.
| Vote | Confidence |
|---|---|
| Agree | 5 |
| Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
|---|---|
| Agree | 6 |
Comments
There are good conceptual reasons for thinking that improved accountability (if we can figure out how to do that) could improve community trust in police, which would have all sorts of public safety benefits. We don't have a lot of rigorous studies documenting that at this point in time but we do have some suggestive case studies.
Comments
We have lots of very good evidence on this point from the economics of crime research literature, but also lots of evidence that there can be variability across departments in how much harm results (so implementation will matter a lot).