The Politics of Crime Reporting: Electoral Cycles and the Distortion of Out-Group Crime

A large and growing literature documents the effects of exposure to news about crime, particularly out-group crime, on political attitudes and voting. However, media outlets generally rely on the police for critical information, including suspect characteristics. Within this context, we conduct the largest-scale analysis of police reporting behavior to date. To do this, we collected and labeled data from over one million police press releases issued by local police stations across Germany between 2014 and 2024. Using a regression discontinuity in time design, we demonstrate that reporting is shaped by electoral competition. We find that local police stations significantly increase out-group cue disclosure in the days immediately preceding regional elections. These findings highlight the police's role as gatekeepers of information, causally prior to the news media.