IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/canjec/v49y2016i2p481-514.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Crime, apprehension and clearance rates: Panel data evidence from Canadian provinces

Author

Listed:
  • Philip A. Curry
  • Anindya Sen
  • George Orlov

Abstract

The Becker model of crime establishes the importance of the probability of apprehension as a key factor in a rational individual's decision to commit a crime. In this respect, most empirical studies based on US data have relied on variation in the number of police officers to estimate the impact of the probability of apprehension or capture. We measure the probability of apprehension by clearance rates and study their effects on crime rates, employing a panel of Canadian provinces from 1986 to 2005. OLS, GMM, GLS and IV estimates yield statistically significant elasticities of clearance rates, ranging from −0.2 to −0.4 for violent crimes and from −0.5 to −0.6 for property crimes. These findings reflect the importance of police force crime‐solving productivity. Crime, arrestation et taux d'incidents élucidés par la police: résultats à partir de données de panels pour les provinces canadiennes. Le modèle de crime de Becker établit l'importance de la probabilité d'arrestation en tant que facteur important dans la décision de commettre un crime d'un individu rationnel. La plupart des études empiriques basées sur des données américaines ont utilisé le nombre de policiers pour évaluer la probabilité d'arrestation. Les auteurs proposent d'utiliser le taux des crimes élucidés, et étudient leurs effets sur les taux de criminalité à l'aide de données pour un panel de provinces canadiennes de1986 à 2005. Des calibrations obtenues par diverses méthodes (moindres carrés ordinaires, moindres carrés généralisés, méthode des moments généralisés, IV) donnent des élasticités significatives des taux de crime par rapport aux taux d'élucidation: entre −0.2 et −0.4 pour les crimes violents, et entre −0.5 et −0.6 pour les crimes contre la propriété. Ces résultats montrent l'importance de la productivité des corps policiers dans l'élucidation des crimes.

Suggested Citation

  • Philip A. Curry & Anindya Sen & George Orlov, 2016. "Crime, apprehension and clearance rates: Panel data evidence from Canadian provinces," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 49(2), pages 481-514, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:canjec:v:49:y:2016:i:2:p:481-514
    DOI: 10.1111/caje.12204
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/caje.12204
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/caje.12204?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mirko Draca & Stephen Machin & Robert Witt, 2011. "Panic on the Streets of London: Police, Crime, and the July 2005 Terror Attacks," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(5), pages 2157-2181, August.
    2. John J. Donohue III & Steven D. Levitt, 2008. "Measurement Error, Legalized Abortion, and the Decline in Crime: A Response to Foote and Goetz," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(1), pages 425-440.
    3. Carr-Hill, R. A. & Stern, N. H., 1973. "An econometric model of the supply and control of recorded offences in England and Wales," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 2(4), pages 289-318.
    4. Steven D. Levitt, 2004. "Understanding Why Crime Fell in the 1990s: Four Factors that Explain the Decline and Six that Do Not," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 18(1), pages 163-190, Winter.
    5. Steven Shavell & A. Mitchell Polinsky, 2000. "The Economic Theory of Public Enforcement of Law," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 38(1), pages 45-76, March.
    6. Roland G. Fryer & Paul S. Heaton & Steven D. Levitt & Kevin M. Murphy, 2005. "Measuring the Impact of Crack Cocaine," NBER Working Papers 11318, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Paul R. Zimmerman, 2004. "State Executions, Deterrence, and the Incidence of Murder," Journal of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 7(1), pages 163-193, May.
    8. Steven D. Levitt, 2002. "Using Electoral Cycles in Police Hiring to Estimate the Effects of Police on Crime: Reply," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(4), pages 1244-1250, September.
    9. Durlauf, Steven N. & Navarro, Salvador & Rivers, David A., 2010. "Understanding aggregate crime regressions," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 158(2), pages 306-317, October.
    10. Lance Lochner, 2007. "Individual Perceptions of the Criminal Justice System," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(1), pages 444-460, March.
    11. Thaler, Richard, 1977. "An econometric analysis of property crime : Interaction between police and criminals," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 37-51, August.
    12. Gary S. Becker, 1974. "Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach," NBER Chapters, in: Essays in the Economics of Crime and Punishment, pages 1-54, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Paul R. Zimmerman, 2009. "Statistical Variability and the Deterrent Effect of the Death Penalty," American Law and Economics Review, American Law and Economics Association, vol. 11(2), pages 370-398.
    14. Kenneth L. Avio & C. Scott Clark, 1978. "The Supply of Property Offences in Ontario: Evidence on the Deterrent Effect of Punishment," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 11(1), pages 1-19, February.
    15. Craig, Steven G., 1987. "The deterrent impact of police: An examination of a locally provided public service," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 298-311, May.
    16. Sen, Anindya & Rybczynski, Kathleen & Van De Waal, Corey, 2011. "Teen employment, poverty, and the minimum wage: Evidence from Canada," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 36-47, January.
    17. Mathur, Vijay K, 1978. "Economics of Crime: An Investigation of the Deterrent Hypothesis for Urban Areas," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 60(3), pages 459-466, August.
    18. Dezhbakhsh, Hashem & Rubin, Paul H, 1998. "Lives Saved or Lives Lost? The Effects of Concealed-Handgun Laws on Crime," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(2), pages 468-474, May.
    19. Steven D. Levitt, 1996. "The Effect of Prison Population Size on Crime Rates: Evidence from Prison Overcrowding Litigation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 111(2), pages 319-351.
    20. Besley, Timothy & Case, Anne, 2000. "Unnatural Experiments? Estimating the Incidence of Endogenous Policies," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(467), pages 672-694, November.
    21. Levitt, Steven D, 1997. "Using Electoral Cycles in Police Hiring to Estimate the Effect of Police on Crime," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(3), pages 270-290, June.
    22. Anindya Sen & Hideki Ariizumi, 2013. "Teen families, welfare transfers, and the minimum wage: evidence from Canada," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 46(1), pages 338-360, February.
    23. Klick, Jonathan & Tabarrok, Alexander, 2005. "Using Terror Alert Levels to Estimate the Effect of Police on Crime," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 48(1), pages 267-279, April.
    24. Corman, Hope & Mocan, Naci, 2005. "Carrots, Sticks, and Broken Windows," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 48(1), pages 235-266, April.
    25. Newey, Whitney & West, Kenneth, 2014. "A simple, positive semi-definite, heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation consistent covariance matrix," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 33(1), pages 125-132.
    26. Thomas Garrett & Lesli Ott, 2011. "Crime and arrests: deterrence or resource reallocation?," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(12), pages 1171-1175.
    27. Wolpin, Kenneth I, 1978. "An Economic Analysis of Crime and Punishment in England and Wales, 1894-1967," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 86(5), pages 815-840, October.
    28. Aaron Chalfin & Justin McCrary, 2013. "The Effect of Police on Crime: New Evidence from U.S. Cities, 1960-2010," NBER Working Papers 18815, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    29. Hashem Dezhbakhsh & Paul H. Rubin & Joanna M. Shepherd, 2003. "Does Capital Punishment Have a Deterrent Effect? New Evidence from Postmoratorium Panel Data," American Law and Economics Review, American Law and Economics Association, vol. 5(2), pages 344-376, August.
    30. Olugbenga Ajilore & John Smith, 2011. "Ethnic fragmentation and police spending," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(4), pages 329-332.
    31. Shepherd, Joanna M, 2002. "Fear of the First Strike: The Full Deterrent Effect of California's Two- and Three-Strikes Legislation," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 31(1), pages 159-201, January.
    32. Sen Anindya, 2007. "Does Increased Abortion Lead to Lower Crime? Evaluating the Relationship between Crime, Abortion, and Fertility," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 7(1), pages 1-38, September.
    33. Mark Duggan, 2001. "More Guns, More Crime," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(5), pages 1086-1114, October.
    34. Levitt, Steven D, 1998. "Why Do Increased Arrest Rates Appear to Reduce Crime: Deterrence, Incapacitation, or Measurement Error?," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 36(3), pages 353-372, July.
    35. Cook, Philip J., 1979. "The clearance rate as a measure of criminal justice system effectiveness," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(1), pages 135-142, February.
    36. Evans, William N. & Owens, Emily G., 2007. "COPS and crime," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(1-2), pages 181-201, February.
    37. Joanna M. Shepherd, 2004. "Murders of Passion, Execution Delays, and the Deterrence of Capital Punishment," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(2), pages 283-321, June.
    38. Cornwell, Christopher & Trumbull, William N, 1994. "Estimating the Economic Model of Crime with Panel Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 76(2), pages 360-366, May.
    39. Ted Joyce, 2009. "A Simple Test of Abortion and Crime," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 91(1), pages 112-123, February.
    40. Paul R. Zimmerman, 2004. "State executions, deterrence, and the incidence of murder," Journal of Applied Economics, Universidad del CEMA, vol. 7, pages 163-193, May.
    41. David B. Mustard, 2003. "Reexamining Criminal Behavior: The Importance of Omitted Variable Bias," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(1), pages 205-211, February.
    42. Eric D. Gould & Bruce A. Weinberg & David B. Mustard, 2002. "Crime Rates And Local Labor Market Opportunities In The United States: 1979-1997," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 84(1), pages 45-61, February.
    43. Justin McCrary, 2002. "Using Electoral Cycles in Police Hiring to Estimate the Effect of Police on Crime: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(4), pages 1236-1243, September.
    44. Zimmerman, Paul R., 2004. "State executions, deterrence, and the incidence of murder," Journal of Applied Economics, Universidad del CEMA, vol. 7(1), pages 1-31, May.
    45. Theodore J. Joyce, 2009. "Abortion and Crime: A Review," NBER Working Papers 15098, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    46. Ehrlich, Isaac, 1973. "Participation in Illegitimate Activities: A Theoretical and Empirical Investigation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(3), pages 521-565, May-June.
    47. George J. Borjas, 1980. "The Relationship between Wages and Weekly Hours of Work: The Role of Division Bias," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 15(3), pages 409-423.
    48. Kenneth L. Avio, 1973. "An Economic Analysis of Criminal Corrections: The Canadian Case," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 6(2), pages 164-178, May.
    49. Steven N. Durlauf & Chao Fu & Salvador Navarro, 2012. "Assumptions Matter: Model Uncertainty and the Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(3), pages 487-492, May.
    50. William Spelman, 2005. "Jobs or jails? The crime drop in Texas," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(1), pages 133-165.
    51. Rafael Di Tella & Ernesto Schargrodsky, 2004. "Do Police Reduce Crime? Estimates Using the Allocation of Police Forces After a Terrorist Attack," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(1), pages 115-133, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Canepa, Alessandra & Drogo, Federico, 2021. "Wildfire crime, apprehension and social vulnerability in Italy," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    2. Livio Di Matteo & Robert Petrunia, 2022. "Does economic inequality breed murder? An empirical investigation of the relationship between economic inequality and homicide rates in Canadian provinces and CMAs," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 62(6), pages 2951-2988, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    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. Angela K. Dills & Jeffrey A. Miron & Garrett Summers, 2010. "What Do Economists Know about Crime?," NBER Chapters, in: The Economics of Crime: Lessons For and From Latin America, pages 269-302, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Steven N. Durlauf & Daniel S. Nagin, 2010. "The Deterrent Effect of Imprisonment," NBER Chapters, in: Controlling Crime: Strategies and Tradeoffs, pages 43-94, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. O’Flaherty, Brendan & Sethi, Rajiv, 2015. "Urban Crime," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 1519-1621, Elsevier.
    5. Mastrobuoni, Giovanni, 2019. "Police disruption and performance: Evidence from recurrent redeployments within a city," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 18-31.
    6. Alejandro Gaviria & Carlos Medina & Jorge Tamayo, 2010. "Assessing the Link between Adolescent Fertility and Urban Crime," Borradores de Economia 6860, Banco de la Republica.
    7. Maurice J. G. Bun & Richard Kelaher & Vasilis Sarafidis & Don Weatherburn, 2020. "Crime, deterrence and punishment revisited," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 59(5), pages 2303-2333, November.
    8. Alexander F. McQuoid & J. Britton Haynes Jr., 2017. "The Thin (Red) Blue Line: Police Militarization and Violent Crime," Departmental Working Papers 56, United States Naval Academy Department of Economics.
    9. Christophe Bellégo & Joeffrey Drouard, 2019. "Does It Pay to Fight Crime? Evidence From the Pacification of Slums in Rio de Janeiro," Working Papers 2019-08, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.
    10. Helen Tauchen, 2010. "Estimating the Supply of Crime: Recent Advances," Chapters, in: Bruce L. Benson & Paul R. Zimmerman (ed.), Handbook on the Economics of Crime, chapter 2, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    11. Isaac Ehrlich, 2010. "The Market Model of Crime: A Short Review and New Directions," Chapters, in: Bruce L. Benson & Paul R. Zimmerman (ed.), Handbook on the Economics of Crime, chapter 1, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    12. Paolo Buonanno & Giovanni Mastrobuoni, 2012. "Police and Crime: Evidence from Dictated Delays in Centralized Police Hiring," Carlo Alberto Notebooks 244, Collegio Carlo Alberto.
    13. Gebhard Kirchgässner, 2011. "Econometric Estimates of Deterrence of the Death Penalty: Facts or Ideology?," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 64(3), pages 448-478, August.
    14. Entorf, Horst, 2012. "Certainty and Severity of Sanctions in Classical and Behavioral Models of Deterrence: A Survey," IZA Discussion Papers 6516, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    15. Patrick T Brandt & Tomislav V Kovandzic, 2015. "Messing Up Texas?: A Re-Analysis of the Effects of Executions on Homicides," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(9), pages 1-19, September.
    16. Jonathan Klick & Alexander Tabarrok, 2010. "Police, Prisons, and Punishment: The Empirical Evidence on Crime Deterrence," Chapters, in: Bruce L. Benson & Paul R. Zimmerman (ed.), Handbook on the Economics of Crime, chapter 6, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    17. Bruce L. Benson, 2010. "The Allocation of Police," Chapters, in: Bruce L. Benson & Paul R. Zimmerman (ed.), Handbook on the Economics of Crime, chapter 8, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    18. Kelaher, Richard & Sarafidis, Vasilis, 2011. "Crime and Punishment Revisited," MPRA Paper 28213, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Blesse, Sebastian & Diegmann, André, 2022. "The place-based effects of police stations on crime: Evidence from station closures," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 207(C).
    20. Guha, Brishti, 2013. "Guns and crime revisited," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 1-10.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • K14 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - Criminal Law

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:canjec:v:49:y:2016:i:2:p:481-514. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1540-5982 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.