Previous empirical studies have typically uncovered little evidence that police reduce crime. One problem with those studies is a failure to adequately deal with the simultaneity between police and crime: while police may or may not reduce crime, there is little doubt that expenditures on police forces are an increasing function of the crime rate. In this study, the timing of mayoral and gubernatorial elections is used to identify the effect of police on crime. This paper first demonstrates that increases in the size of police forces disproportionately occur in mayoral and gubernatorial election years, a relationship that had previously gone undocumented. After controlling for changes in government spending on other social programs, there is little reason to think that elections will be otherwise correlated with crime, making elections ideal instruments. Using a panel of large U.S. cities from 1970-1992, police are shown to reduce crime for six of the seven crime categories examined. Each additional police officer is estimated to eliminate eight to ten serious crimes. Existing estimates of the costs of crime suggest that the social benefit of reduced crime is approximately $100,000 per officer per year, implying that the current number of police is below the optimal level.
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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number
4991.
Length: Date of creation: Jan 1995 Date of revision: Publication status: published as Levitt, Steven D. "Using Electoral Cycles In Police Hiring To Estimate The Effects Of Police On Crime: Reply," American Economic Review, 2002, v92(4,Sep), 1244-1250. Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:4991
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Find related papers by JEL classification: K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law H72 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Budget and Expenditures
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Edward L. Glaeser & Bruce Sacerdote & Jose A. Scheinkman, 1995.
"Crime and Social Interactions,"
NBER Working Papers
5026, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
McCormick, Robert E & Tollison, Robert D, 1984.
"Crime on the Court,"
Journal of Political Economy,
University of Chicago Press, vol. 92(2), pages 223-35, April.
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