Skip to main content

Analysing the role of police officer strength in the crime drop in England.

Tura, F., Hunter, J., Thompson, R. and Tseloni, A., 2023. Analysing the role of police officer strength in the crime drop in England. Policing, 17, paad079.

Full text available as:

[img] PDF
Police officer strenght and crime drop - accepted version.pdf - Accepted Version
Restricted to Repository staff only until 29 November 2025.
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial.

364kB

DOI: 10.1093/police/paad079

Abstract

According to evidence from the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW), there have been significant falls in crime levels in England and Wales since the 1990s. Many hypotheses have been proposed to explain these falls. However, there is scarce research on the role of the number of police officers in bringing about the crime drop in the UK. We fitted multilevel models to analyse the role of the number of police officers in the crime drop in England between 1991 and 2001 using a variety of data sources, including police recorded crime data, UK Census data, and police workforce data. We found that the role of police officer strength in the crime drop in England was limited to vehicle thefts, thefts from vehicle, and thefts from person. Given the relatively mixed picture, we recommend that police forces should focus on what newly recruited police officers do and where they are deployed, as opposed to becoming too focussed on the number of officers. More implications of the findings in relation to the recent Police Uplift Programme are discussed.

Item Type:Article
ISSN:1752-4512
Group:Faculty of Health & Social Sciences
ID Code:39291
Deposited By: Symplectic RT2
Deposited On:20 Dec 2023 11:04
Last Modified:30 May 2024 09:37

Downloads

Downloads per month over past year

More statistics for this item...
Repository Staff Only -