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Crime Rates, Clearance Rates and Enforcement Effort: The Case of Houston, Texas

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  • Dale O. Cloninger
  • Lester C. Sartorius

Abstract

. Two time series relationships with respect to police and criminal activities are analyzed. These relationships are: 1. That between police input and police output where the latter was measured by arrest and convictions rates and the former by expenditures and number of officers and, 2. The hypothetical one between the probability of arrest (the clearance ratio; i.e., the proportion of reported crimes for which arrests were made) and crime rates. Theoretically, an increase in expenditures for police effort would cause an increase in the clearance rate and a concomitant reduction in the crime rate. The results of this study showed little or no response in clearance and crime rates to small changes in police expenditures. However, there was evidence that large changes in police effort did produce some response in both clearance and crime rates. The implication of these findings was that the marginal product of police input was small.

Suggested Citation

  • Dale O. Cloninger & Lester C. Sartorius, 1979. "Crime Rates, Clearance Rates and Enforcement Effort: The Case of Houston, Texas," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(4), pages 389-402, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ajecsc:v:38:y:1979:i:4:p:389-402
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1536-7150.1979.tb02845.x
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    Cited by:

    1. Eide, Erling & Rubin, Paul H. & Shepherd, Joanna M., 2006. "Economics of Crime," Foundations and Trends(R) in Microeconomics, now publishers, vol. 2(3), pages 205-279, December.
    2. Christian Almer & Timo Goeschl, 2011. "The political economy of the environmental criminal justice system: a production function approach," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 148(3), pages 611-630, September.
    3. William M. Doerner & William G. Doerner, 2010. "Police Accreditation and Clearance Rates," Working Papers wp2010_06_01, Department of Economics, Florida State University, revised Aug 2010.

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