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Funding Community Policing to Reduce Crime: Have COPS Grants Made a Difference from 1994 to 2000?

NCJ Number
207917
Author(s)
Jihong Zhao Ph.D.; Quint Thurman Ph.D.
Date Published
December 2004
Length
61 pages
Annotation
This study examined how funding for community oriented policing programs affected violent and property crime rates between 1994 and 1999.
Abstract
Crime rates throughout most large cities in the United States have dropped significantly since the mid-1990’s. During this time, the United States Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), funded the implementation of community oriented policing programs across the country, yet little is known about how these contributions affected the crime rates. The current research examines the overall impact of COPS funding during 1994 through 1999, controlling for theoretically relevant variables. The methodology involved a 7 year (1994-1999) panel dataset using 7,597 COPS funded and non-funded cities. Data were drawn from the Uniform Crime Reports, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the United States Census, the the COPS Office data. A two-factor fixed effect model explored the effects of COPS funding on violent and property crime rates, controlling for eight social disorganization variables, including baseline levels of crime, socioeconomic characteristics, city size, and population mobility and diversity. Results indicated that COPS grant programs were significantly related to reductions in local violent and property crime rates in cities with populations above 10,000. In particular, $1 of COPS MORE funding corresponded to a decrease of 17.12 property crimes per 100,000 residents. In cities of less than 10,000, COPS funding had no significant effect on the violent and property crime rates. Tables, references, appendixes