Civitas have done a nice X-Y scatter graph in this article, which shows a definite correlation. Where it falls down is that not all crime is recorded; some things count as a crime in one country but not in another etc, and what exactly is a 'police officer'? Does it include PCSOs, traffic wardens, HM Customs & Excise people? Do they adjust for the fact that some police officers are out on the beat and some are stuck behind desks?
Either way, Excel tells me that the correlation is -0.52, and broadly speaking, for every additional police officer there are 20 fewer recorded crimes.
Which makes the maths nice and simple:
IF the cost of each crime is greater than (say) £2,500 (including emotional wear and tear as well as actual financial loss)
AND it costs less than (say) £50,000 to employ a police officer (including training, car, back up staff, pension and all the trimmings)
THEN employing additional police officers is a very good deal,
ELSE not.
Similarly, the total cost of running the UK's prisons is less than £4 billion a year, allegedly, i.e. it costs every citizen £65 a year, which seems like stupendously good value to me.
Thursday 3 February 2011
Police numbers versus recorded crime in Europe
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11 comments:
Freakonomics asserts similar, comparing crime stats in cities where mayors boosted police recruitment during election campaigns with cities where there was no change to recruitment because there was no election. It seems that the general public's general feeling that "bobbies on the beat" are a good thing is correct!
I suspect it costs more than £50,000 a year to employ even a lowly PC. Measuring the cost of crime or the benefit from living in a low-crime society must be quite difficult!
BE, although we don't know what cost-per-bobby (or Bobette) is, we know that there must be a reasonably accurate answer (£50k, £100k, whatever).
The big problem is the 'cost' of crime (or the value of its absence). If you are mugged and they steal twenty quid and a mobile 'phone, your financial loss might be only £50 or something, but what value do you place on emotional wear and tear? How can you possibly place a value on not being raped or murdered?
Those street-by-street crime stats might give us some indication (the value of being in a low crime area shows up as higher house prices, for example).
Is that 65 quid per citizen or per taxpayer (excluding state employees and fellow traveller businesses and fake charities)?
L £4 bn divided by 62 million = £65. Or you can call it £148 per household or per taxpayer, it's the 'value for money' aspect that's of interest hear, not who pays it.
A classic case of cum hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, I fear.
DS, make up your own mind:
a) Higher crime means there are fewer police officers.
b) More police officers means there is less crime.
c) There is a third factor, which causes high crime rates and low numbers of police officers (such as being rabidly small government libertarian?)
In the absence of a plausible (c) and ruling out (a), my money's on (b).
a) just doesn't make sense - how could higher crime possibly cause there to be fewer officers? Unless the people who might join the police are tempted by the proceeds of crime instead. But this begs all sorts of questions about substitutability, relative quality of applicants, etc..
Duncan, read what the Freakonomics chaps have to say about it. Their argument is quite convincing.
Given the levels of clustering on the graph, and the extent to which the clusters match existing cultural stereotypes ("Nordics", "Anglosphere", "Germany & France", "civilised E Europe", "ropey crooks"), I suggest it's reasonable to assume that there's a culturally-dependent Variable 3. And that it probably translates to something like "honesty-of-public vs honesty-of-cops".
The most obviously evidence for this is that Sweden, despite having enormously high recorded crime, is very obviously not a lawless shithole, whereas Cyprus, despite having enormously low recorded crime, very obviously is.
JB, that seems plausible.
In other words, absolute crime levels might be exactly the same everywhere, but Cypriots just don't bother reporting it because the police aren't interested. Conversely, the police in Cyprus might be quasi an exortion racket, so politicians who are in the pockets of corrupt senior coppers are quite happy to increase the number of junior policemen. And shopkeepers are hardly like to report it when policemen visit to pick up protection money.
Whether this is factually correct or not is a separate issue.
MW Thanks. 82 quid p.a. each for me and Mrs L seems a pretty good deal to lock up scum bags. Where do I send the cheque?
L, yes, the per capita cost of core functions of the state (police, prisons, road maintenance, refuse collection and street sweeping) are surprisingly cheap, something in the order of £500 - £1,000 per household per year.
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