Crime, Police, and Deterrence: A Simultaneous Model
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1-1981
Description
A nonrecursive model of police and crime relationships is tested with data from 382 U.S. cities. The model incorporates the impact ofpolice presence on crime as well as that of crime on citizen demandsfor police. The analysis is crime-specific and reveals afundamental weakness in traditional theories of the deterrent effect of police presence, suggesting that for most offenses, police presence does not have a significant influence on the objective certainty of punishment (measured as police clearance rates). Strong support was foundfor the proposition that crime generates citizen demand for more police, indicating that such demand originates primarily with violent types of crime.
Citation Information
Brown, Stephen E.. 1981. Crime, Police, and Deterrence: A Simultaneous Model. Criminal Justice Review. Vol.6(2). 1-7. https://doi.org/10.1177/073401688100600201 ISSN: 0734-0168