To study an issue like this, one must dive deep into the insurance industry itself, and that is exactly what Rappaport did. His article is based on “interviews with over thirty insurance industry representatives, civil rights litigators, municipal attorneys, police chiefs, consultants and more.” There is so much to th­e article that any summary will fail to do it justice, but briefly, Rappaport charts a chain of incentives that works as follows: police departments have an incentive to obtain liability insurance because it reduces risk. Insurance companies, in turn, have an incentive to reduce claims, thus increasing their profits. To reduce claims, insurance companies often encourage (or even require) education, training, accreditation, and other conditions that tend to improve officer compliance with the law, thus reducing claims. Departments have an incentive to follow insurance companies’ guidance on these matters not just because they need and want liability insurance, but also because doing so may reduce the cost of premiums and deductibles.

Rappaport is careful not to claim that insurance certainly reduces police misconduct, for that claim would require much more than the qualitative research he presents. Moreover, Charles Epp has collected data that casts some doubt on the role of insurance in pushing police reform (though, as Rappaport notes, Epp’s data is now nearly two decades old and did not focus on misconduct itself, but rather best practices). Nonetheless, Rappaport’s study leaves little doubt that insurance plays a significant role in how departments handle officer training and personnel decisions. The inference of deterrence—to one degree or another—is thus reasonable in most cases.

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