The Effect of Police Characteristics on Alternative Measures of Police Output

Abstract

The ability of municipal police departments to affect crime is a complex issue. The selection of independent variables for such analysis has received considerable attention. Perhaps more problematic has been the selection and measurement of the dependent variable, crime. This article examines the impact offive police variables: expenditures, manpower, municipal police effort, technological innovations, and police reform. Three measures of crime are used: UCR data, arrests, and victimization reports. No clear pattern of effect or direction of relationship was observedfor the 25 cities under study.