A study of the Relationship between Police Patrol and Crime

Abstract

This paper focuses on the empirical studies relating to police strategies and crime rates. My hypothesis is that if police practiced more aggressive patrol, there would be less crime. Wilson and Boland (1978) divide police patrol strategy into two types: aggressive and passive. While Wilson and Boland advocate an indirect effect for the aggressive strategy, Wilson and Kelling (1982) suggest that vigorous law enforcement by police can directly affect crime rates by giving criminals the message of ‘people care’, rather than the wrong impression of ‘nobody cares’. Many scholars think it plausible that aggressive policing does reduce crime, whether its effect on crime is direct or indirect. Since crime is a serious problem in the U.S., policy makers have implemented various strategies to cure them. For example, the New York City Police Department implemented the broken windows strategy - a form of aggressive police strategy. Therefore, I think it is valuable to review and summarize the empirical evidence concerning the relationship between aggressive police strategy and crime rates. Overall, the best available evidences do not support either indirect effects of aggressive policing on serious crimes or direct effects on serious crimes. In fact, aggressive policing is not an effective strategy in controlling serious crimes but it can be an effective way in controlling residual labors.