in a survey of crime and policing that Jon Klick and I wrote in 2010 we found that a cost-benefit analysis would justify doubling the number of police on the street. We based our calculation not only on our own research from Washington DC but also on the research of many other economists which together provide a remarkably consistent estimate that a 10% increase in policing would reduce crime by 3 to 5%. Using our estimates, as well as those of some more recent papers, the Council of Economic Advisers also estimates big benefits (somewhat larger than ours) from an increase in policing. Moreover, what the CEA makes clear is that a dollar spent on policing is more effective at reducing crime than a dollar spent on imprisoning.
I suspect there is a bifurcation point. A doubling of police might yield benefits, but a marginal increase may only make things like police brutality worse. I suspect it depends on where the bottlenecks at each step of the process are. If we simply increase police without that causing an adjustment, won’t a dollar spent on more police result in more dollars spent on lawyers and incarceration?
That more police lead to less crime is pretty obvious. The question is by what mechanism does increased policing reduce crime. The answer would seem to be deterrence and suppression by increased perception of detection. But if that’s the case, then why not just ramp up surveillance in all public areas, with a special focus on trouble spots? That’s a lot cheaper, and the records are less susceptible to the classic problems with human memory and testimony.
Thus,, calls for ‘more police’ logically imply more steps toward panopticon as a more efficient solution, which is especially true when human police are hamstrung in their potential (and historical) effectiveness by legal and social pressures.
As an analogy, one could say that more traffic cops reduces speeding and the running of red lights. But for anyone tasked with reducing violations, that truth leafs straightaway to installation of automatic cameras and citation systems instead of hiring more traffic cops.
There is a lot of moving parts that have to be analyzed. The purpose of speeding tickets are revenue and to instigate police contacts for serving warrants, initiating searches and instigating resisting arrest.
Is there evidence that speeding is the cause of unsafety? Odd, for example, that all cops do it.
He unfortunately gives no consideration to the negative impact on personal liberty and right to go about ones business of increasing the number of police. As with any type of work, the police must appear to be busy and in the absence of the very sporadic larger crimes, they increase the enforcement of “revenue” offenses — petty crimes that generate income.
When NYC implemented stop and frisk it wasn’t a terrible idea, but then it became a metric for promotion and pay. If an officer didn’t happen upon enough suspicious behavior or was lazy, then they just harassed whomever was unlucky enough to pass by. NYPD never offered any evidence they put effort into improving the efficacy of the officer stops and decrease the 90% false hit rate on finding contraband to justify the stops.
Instead of more police how about reducing the number of criminal laws on the books? Specifically the so called “victim less” crimes such as gambling, drugs, prostitution, etc. Fewer laws to enforce, fewer crimes, fewer police needed.
So why is this the case? Prison industry more powerful than city governments? State taxation easier than local or state spending harder to control than local? People object less to spending on buildings than on staff?