name: Gene Straughan, Ph.D
email: gtstraughan@lcsc.edu

comments

What about the effect of law enforcement practices on the reduction of crime? There is a long-held proposition among academics that the police do not directly impact crime rates. In Why Crime Rates Fell, Conklin examines the crime reduction strategies of law enforcement, such as saturation patrols, aggressive policing, community policing, problem-oriented policing, and arrest practices. He concludes that the data show that policing probably had little to do with the decrease in crime. In the book entitled The Crime Drop in America, John Eck and Edward Maguire reached a similar conclusion when they analyzed the impact that law enforcement initiatives (community policing, adding 100,000 new cops, and zero-tolerance policing) have had on the reduction of crime. They concluded that police do not have an independent impact on crime, but are most likely one variable among numerous social variables. Why have researchers found that there is a questionable relationship between police practices and crime reduction? What about the effect of increased incarceration on the reduction of crime? Conklin points out that the decrease in crime rates has more to do with the number of offenders incarcerated than with police action. Sometimes the addition of more police officer results in the detection of greater crime, giving the false impression that there is an increase in crime. Even saturation patrol may appear to reduce violent crime in a targeted area with effect of displacing crime to other areas. Research by Spelman further shows that the elasticity of incarceration means that the prison build-up reduced the annual rate of crime by 35% and that perhaps 25% of the crime drop is linked to incarceration. Still we can question whether (a) incarceration is responsible for lowering crime and (2) the benefits of this drop in crime outweigh the social and financial costs of the massive prison build-up.