This dissertation is composed of three chapters that explore how changing policies and events affect vulnerable groups. Chapter one studies the effects of an expansion of body-worn camera programs on police interactions and court outcomes. I describe conceptually how the presence of body-worn cameras may change incentives for police and members of the public during police interactions, and how an influx of body-worn camera data into the courts can affect attorney time use and uncertainty in litigation. To test for these effects, I collect data from over 150 law enforcement agencies across Virginia on body-worn camera adoption. I combine these data with records of criminal court cases throughout Virginia and find evidence that body-worn cameras changed police interactions. However, the body-worn camera video data did not affect the prevalence of guilty verdicts, incarceration, or even the likelihood that cases resolved within a year of filing. In the second chapter, I describe indigent defender labor markets and delve more deeply into the null results of the first chapter. Each year, Virginia compensates hundreds of criminal defense attorneys to provide legal representation to low-income criminal defendants on a case-by-case basis. Wages for these cases are fixed, but legal defense is guaranteed for qualifying defendants. Using administrative pay records from Virginia's Supreme Court, I show that this structure produces variability in indigent defender labor supply. Many attorneys represent defendants in a small number of cases annually, while a small subset of indigent defense vendors are highly active in the market. I then use certification records from the Virginia Indigent Defense Commission to test whether body-worn cameras drove attorneys to leave indigent defense. The third chapter describes Venezuelan migrant movements through Ecuador during the Venezuelan diaspora of the 2010s. I use administrative data from Ecuador on recorded entries to and exits from the country by Venezuelans to quantify migrant flows. I document the emergence of a migrant route connecting Colombia and Peru through Ecuador and variations in migrant flows along this route as entry requirements to Ecuador and Peru changed.
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