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The Impact of the First Professional Police Forces on Crime

Author

Listed:
  • Bindler, Anna

    (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University)

  • Hjalmarsson, Randi

    (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University)

Abstract

This paper evaluates how the introduction of professional police forces affected crime using two natural experiments in history: the 1829 formation of the London Metropolitan Police (the first police force ever tasked with deterring crime) and the 1839 to 1856 county roll-out of forces in England and Wales. The London Met analysis relies on two complementary data sources. The first, trial data with geocoded crime locations, allows for a difference-indifferences estimation that finds a significant and persistent reduction in robbery but not homicide or burglary. A pre-post analysis of the second source, daily police reports of both cleared and uncleared crime incidents, finds a significant reduction in all violent crimes but offsetting changes in uncleared (decrease) and cleared (increase) property crimes. These (local) reductions in crime are not just due to crime displacement but represent true decreases in overall crime. Difference-in-difference analyses of the county roll-out find that only sufficiently large forces, measured by the population to force ratio, significantly reduced crime. The results are robust to controlling for spill-over effects of neighboring forces.

Suggested Citation

  • Bindler, Anna & Hjalmarsson, Randi, 2019. "The Impact of the First Professional Police Forces on Crime," Working Papers in Economics 779, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0779
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/2077/62225
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    Cited by:

    1. Eric Melander & Martina Miotto, 2023. "Welfare Cuts and Crime: Evidence from the New Poor Law," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 133(651), pages 1248-1264.
    2. Anna Bindler & Randi Hjalmarsson & Stephen Machin & Melissa Rubio-Ramos, 2023. "Murphy's Law or Luck of the Irish? Disparate Treatment of the Irish in 19th Century Courts," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 228, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    3. Anna Bindler & Randi Hjalmarsson, 2021. "The Impact of the First Professional Police Forces on Crime [State Capacity and Economic Development: A Network Approach]," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 19(6), pages 3063-3103.
    4. Casilda Lasso de la Vega & Oscar Volij & Federico Weinschelbaum, 2023. "When do more police induce more crime?," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 76(3), pages 759-778, October.
    5. Blesse, Sebastian & Diegmann, André, 2022. "The place-based effects of police stations on crime: Evidence from station closures," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 207(C).
    6. Lovett, Nicholas & Xue, Yuhan, 2022. "Rare homicides, criminal behavior, and the returns to police labor," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 194(C), pages 172-195.
    7. Wolfgang Maennig & Stefan Wilhelm, 2023. "Crime Prevention Effects of Data Retention Policies," Working Papers 074, Chair for Economic Policy, University of Hamburg.
    8. Francis Petterini & Akauã Flores, 2021. "Copula econometrics to simulate effects of private policing on crime," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 41(3), pages 1241-1254.
    9. Hanlon, W.Walker & Heblich, Stephan, 2022. "History and urban economics," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    10. Bindler, Anna & Machin, Stephen & Hjalmarsson, Randi & Rubio-Ramos, Melissa, 2023. "Murphy’s Law or Luck of the Irish? Disparate Treatment of the Irish in 19th Century Courts," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 661, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    11. Kyriakos C. Neanidis & Maria P. Rana, 2023. "Crime in the era of COVID‐19: Evidence from England," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 63(5), pages 1100-1130, November.
    12. Bryan C. McCannon & Zachary Porreca, 2025. "The right to counsel: criminal prosecution in 19th century London," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 92(365), pages 285-321, January.
    13. Blesse, Sebastian & Diegmann, André, 2019. "Police reorganization and crime: Evidence from police station closures," ZEW Discussion Papers 18-044, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research, revised 2019.

    More about this item

    Keywords

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    JEL classification:

    • H00 - Public Economics - - General - - - General
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
    • N93 - Economic History - - Regional and Urban History - - - Europe: Pre-1913

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