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Crime and Police Resources: The Street Crime Initiative

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  • Stephen Machin
  • Olivier Marie

Abstract

In this paper we look at links between police resources and crime in a different way to the existing economics of crime work. To do so we focus on a policy intervention - the Street Crime Initiative - that was introduced in England and Wales in 2002. This allocated additional resources to some police force areas to combat street crime, whereas other forces did not receive any additional funding. Estimates derived from several empirical strategies show that robberies did fall significantly in SCI police forces relative to non-SCI forces after the initiative was introduced. Moreover, the policy seems to have been a cost effective one. There is some heterogeneity in this positive net social benefit across different SCI police forces, suggesting that some police forces may have made better use of the extra resources than others. Overall, we reach the conclusion that increased police resources do in fact lead to lower crime, at least in the context of the SCI programme we study.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Centre for Economic Performance, LSE in its series CEP Discussion Papers with number dp0680.

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Date of creation: Mar 2005
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Handle: RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp0680

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Web page: http://cep.lse.ac.uk/_new/publications/series.asp?prog=CEP

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Keywords: Street crime; Police resources; Cost effectiveness;

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  1. Levitt, Steven D, 1997. "Using Electoral Cycles in Police Hiring to Estimate the Effect of Police on Crime," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(3), pages 270-90, June.
  2. Orley Ashenfelter & David Card, 1984. "Using the Longitudinal Structure of Earnings to Estimate the Effect of Training Programs," NBER Working Papers 1489, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  3. Steven D. Levitt, 2002. "Using Electoral Cycles in Police Hiring to Estimate the Effects of Police on Crime: Reply," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(4), pages 1244-1250, September.
  4. Ashenfelter, Orley C, 1978. "Estimating the Effect of Training Programs on Earnings," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 60(1), pages 47-57, February.
  5. Justin McCrary, 2002. "Using Electoral Cycles in Police Hiring to Estimate the Effect of Police on Crime: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(4), pages 1236-1243, September.
  6. Heckman, James J & Ichimura, Hidehiko & Todd, Petra, 1998. "Matching as an Econometric Evaluation Estimator," Review of Economic Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 65(2), pages 261-94, April.
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Cited by:
  1. Mirko Draca & Stephen Machin & Robert Witt, 2010. "Crime Displacement and Police Interventions: Evidence from London’s “Operation Theseus”," NBER Chapters, in: The Economics of Crime: Lessons for and from Latin America, pages 359-374 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  2. Mirko Draca & Stephen Machin & Robert Witt, 2008. "Panic on the Streets of London: Police, Crime and the July 2005 Terror Attacks," School of Economics Discussion Papers 0308, School of Economics, University of Surrey.
  3. Hope Corman & Naci H. Mocan, 2013. "Alcohol Consumption, Deterrence and Crime in New York City," NBER Working Papers 18731, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  4. John Smith & Olugbenga Ajilore, 2007. "Ethnic Fragmentation and Police Spending: Social Identity and a Public Good," Departmental Working Papers 200708, Rutgers University, Department of Economics.
  5. Gerson Javier Pérez V., 2012. "Plan Colombia’s Onset: Effects on Homicides and Violent Deaths," BORRADORES DE ECONOMIA 010348, BANCO DE LA REPÚBLICA.
  6. Gerson Javier Pérez Valbuena, 2013. "La Política de Seguridad Democrática 2002-2006: efectos socioeconómicos en las áreas rurales," DOCUMENTOS DE TRABAJO SOBRE ECONOMÍA REGIONAL 010361, BANCO DE LA REPÚBLICA - ECONOMÍA REGIONAL.
  7. Philip J. Cook, 2008. "Assessing Urban Crime And Its Control: An Overview," NBER Working Papers 13781, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

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