To Tow Or Not to Tow: The Deterrence Effect of a Municipal Ordinance 47 Criminal Law Bulletin 2011

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47 Crim. L. Bull. 410 (2011)
To Tow Or Not to Tow: The Deterrence Effect of a Municipal Ordinance

handle is hein.journals/cmlwbl47 and id is 414 raw text is:

To Tow or Not to Tow: The Deterrence
Effect of a Municipal Ordinance*

Alexia Brunet Marks and Ronald J. Allen*
We examine the natural experiment caused by amendments to the
City of Waukegan vehicular code adding mandatory impoundment and
towing of vehicles for certain ticketed behavior. Towing added an im-
mediate sanction to what was otherwise a delayed sanctioning
mechanism and increased the cost beyond the fine associated with
the ticket. In fact, prior to the change in the law, in many instances
there may have been essentially no sanction if the person did not pay
a fine. A Multivariate negative binomial regression model was used to
evaluate the effect of the legislation on tickets and accidents while
controlling for the number of registered drivers and time. The results
show that the legislation led to a 39% reduction in the total number of
tickets, a 54% reduction in the number of tickets for the four towable
offenses, and a 37% reduction in accidents. Accidents to property
decreased 39%; meanwhile, tickets decreased 39% for driving with a
suspended/revoked license, 39% for driving under the influence, 53%
for driving without a license, and 66% for driving an uninsured motor
vehicle. All these results are significant at the 1% level and provide
credible evidence of deterrence in a natural experiment setting.
TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION
I. LITERATURE REVIEW
II. EMPIRICAL DESIGN
A. Data
1. Ticket Data
2. Accident Data
3. Ticket Disposition Data

Copyright @ 2011 Ronald J. Allen. Printed with permission.
Alexia Brunet Marks is an Associate Professor of Law, University of Colorado
Law School. J.D., Northwestern University; Ph.D., Purdue University.
Ronald J. Allen is John Henry Wigmore Professor of Law, Northwestern
University School of Law; Fellow, Procedural Law Research Center, China University
of Political Science and Law, Beijing. We are indebted to Kyle Steimetz for excellent
research assistance.

@ 2011 Thomson Reuters * Criminal Law Bulletin * Vol. 47 No. 3

410