For the past seven years, the most prominent federal
crime-prevention initiative has been the Community Oriented
Policing Services (COPS) program, which gives grants to state and
local law enforcement agencies to help them reduce crime by
increasing community policing services. These federal funds,
initially granted in December 1993, were to be used to place
100,000 additional officers on America's streets by October 2000.
Since the inception of the program, local law enforcement agencies
have used billions of these dollars for officer salaries, computer
technology, and clerical support.
Several proposals now before Congress
would significantly expand this program, based largely on the
belief that COPS is helping to lower crime rates. For
example, Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE) believes that the COPS program
is "the most successful crime fighting strategy this nation has
ever seen." Empirical research, however,
does not support such claims.
A
previous study by The Heritage Foundation compared the historical
hiring trend of police officers from 1975 to 1993 and found that
COPS grants may have placed only 40,000 additional officers on the
street by 1998. A report funded by the COPS
Office and published last year by the U.S. Department of Justice
estimates that the number of officers that COPS places on the
streets will peak at around 57,000 by the year 2001. Clearly,
the COPS program has not achieved its goal of placing 100,000
additional officers on America's streets to reduce crime.
The
number of new officers actually deployed across the nation is one
useful indicator of the program's success, but it does not
specifically address the question of whether the COPS program is an
effective crime-fighting strategy. This study addresses that
question by measuring the program's impact on violent crime rates
(see text box, "Understanding Violent Crime Rates"). It does not
analyze the effect of adding officers to the street, because in
many instances law enforcement agencies that received COPS grants
failed to hire the additional officers required to fill the
positions funded; it
analyzes only the relationship between COPS funding and violent
crime rates at the county level.
On
the basis of this study, Heritage analysts found that:
-
The major components of the COPS
program--the hiring and redeployment grants --failed to show a
statistically measurable effect on violent crime rates. In other
words, increasing grants for hiring and redeployment of officers,
per capita, is not associated with lower rates of violent crime.
This finding suggests that federal support of the operational
expenses of police departments is ineffective in reducing violent
crime.
-
Miscellaneous grants, a minor component of
the COPS program used to fund specific actions such as targeting
domestic violence and gang activities, appear to be more effective
than hiring and redeployment grants in reducing violent crime. A
per capita increase of $1 in miscellaneous COPS grants is
associated with a reduction in violent crime of almost 16.2
incidents per 100,000 residents. The effectiveness of these
miscellaneous grants may be due to the fact that the agencies
receiving them already were better at identifying and solving
problems than other agencies.
-
Increasing the likelihood of going to
prison for committing a violent crime reduces the violent crime
rate. When the rate of prison sentences per violent crime arrests
increases by 1 percent, for example, the expected incidence of
violent crime decreases by 1.2 per 100,000 residents.
- The nationally declining violent crime
rates appear to be strongly related to changes of behavior in
minority communities. The model predicts that a county with a
non-white population that is 1 percent higher than another county's
would experience a greater reduction in its violent crime rate. The
study found that a county with 1 percent more minorities
experiences 57.2 fewer violent crimes per 100,000 residents,
holding other factors constant. This finding is similar to the
results of the National Crime Victimization Survey, which found
that between 1995 and 1998, minorities experienced greater
reductions in violent crime victimization rates than did whites.
|
Understanding
Violent Crime Rates
Heritage analysts studying the COPS program calculated a
county's violent crime rate per 100,000 residents using the
following formula:1
Number of
county violent
crime offenses |
|
x 100,000 = Violent
crime rate
|
|
Total county
population |
For example, the violent crime rate in
a county of 200,000 residents that experienced 600 violent crimes
would be 600 divided by 200,000 times 100,000, which equals 300
violent crimes per 100,000 residents.
Assuming a statistically significant
relationship, if police funding increases by $1 per capita and
violent crime declines by 40 offenses, this county could expect a
reduction of 20 incidents in its violent crime rate. The violent
crime rate could be expected to fall from 300 to 280 violent crimes
per 100,000 residents.
1. Violent crime
is defined as the total number of murders, forcible rapes,
robberies, and aggravated assaults.
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MEASURING PROGRAM EFFECTIVENESS
With few exceptions, federal crime
prevention programs have been funded without sufficient attention
to their effects on crime. Evaluations of these programs tend to
focus on process , such as where
grants were allocated and how many officers were funded, rather
than results .
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO)
recently noted that debates over funding federal crime prevention
programs have lacked vital information about effectiveness. The CBO
notes that "reductions in crime may have as much to do with
demographic changes and the strength of the economy as with the
efforts of a federal crime-prevention program." Measures of program
effectiveness often require the use of techniques that take into
account the effects of demographic and economic changes.
To enable policymakers to evaluate the
effectiveness of the COPS program in fighting crime, the technique
used in this CDA analysis employs statistical methods that control
for the effects of socioeconomic variables. This study looks at
violent crime data from 1995 to 1998, a short four-year time span
that does not allow for an explanation of why the national violent
crime rate has declined each year since 1991. However, the research
includes over 750 counties across the country. The analysis
discusses how traditional policing and community policing are
expected to affect crime rates, compares the benefits of using a
statistical method over anecdotal observations, explains its data
collection methods and the variables in the study, and reviews the
statistical analyses. For methodology and detailed statistical
results, see the Appendix.
THE EFFECTS OF POLICING ON CRIME
Before the advent of community policing,
researchers and practitioners explained the effects of policing on
crime by pointing to the deterrent effect of police activity or to
how arrests incapacitate criminals. The deterrence theory holds
that increasing police activity deters crime by making criminals
believe that the probability of their arrest and punishment is
higher.
The increased risk of detection decreases the benefits of illegal
activities. Criminals who fear arrest and punishment will have
second thoughts before committing a crime.
A related theory suggests that increased
police activity not only increases deterrence, but also leads to
the incapacitation of criminals. Increases in incapacitation
are achieved by increasing the percentage of offenses that are
cleared by arrest, meaning that the offenders are arrested and
temporarily removed from society. Clearance rates are defined as
the percentage of known offenses that result in an arrest of an
offender; they are usually measured on an annual basis. Not only do
increased clearance rates have a deterrence effect because specific
offenders perceive criminal activity as more risky, but clearances
also reduce the opportunity for offenders to commit illegal acts.
After an arrest for a violent crime, offenders are frequently
detained in jail while awaiting trial and subsequent incarceration.
Though clearance rates do not specifically measure the
incapacitation effect, they can be used to measure the effects of
incapacitation on violent crime.
The theories of deterrence and
incapacitation have been challenged by those who believe that
police activities have little effect on crime since criminals
rarely weigh the costs and benefits of illegal activities before
they engage in them. For example, criminologists Michael R.
Gottfredson and Travis Hirschi assert that to commit a crime, an
"obvious opportunity coupled with a lack of self-control is all
that is required." Further, the "offender sees
a momentary opportunity to get something for nothing and he seizes
it. These facts delineate the natural limits of law enforcement." These
experts conclude that "no evidence exists that the augmentation of
police forces or equipment, differential patrol strategies, or
differential intensities of surveillance have an effect on crime
rates."
Assuming that criminals do not rationally
calculate the benefits and costs of their actions, Gottfredson and
Hirschi downplay the importance of policies that increase the
effects of deterrence and incapacitation. Although advocates of
community policing support the role of deterrence and
incapacitation, they believe that police make a difference in
fighting crime though other means.
COMMUNITY POLICING
The concept of community policing is
broad, encompassing many types of activities. In general, community
policing is associated with officers and citizens working together
to solve problems associated with crime, social and physical
disorder, undesirable neighborhood conditions, and fear of crime.
The direct consequences of violent crime
are apparent, but the relationship between the fear caused by crime
and social disorder is less well understood. The role of community
police officers is not simply to make arrests, but also to prevent
crime, work with the community to solve ongoing problems, and
improve the quality of life in communities.
Advocates of community policing believe
that it effectively reduces crime by:
-
Diagnosing and
managing problems in the community that produce serious crimes;
-
Fostering closer
relationships with residents of the community to facilitate crime
solving; and
-
Building self-defense capabilities
within the community itself.
In short, community policing officers help
build community by fostering neighborhood coalitions and reducing
fear of crime and social disorder.
Perhaps the best-known fact about fear is
that it can destroy aspects of community that make it healthy. As crime
increases, public areas are seen as unsafe and are less utilized
during the day. Some citizens take protective action to secure
their safety and belongings, barricading themselves behind
deadbolts, window bars, and fences. Others change their lifestyles
by staying home at night or leaving the community altogether.
Officers practicing community policing still produce deterrence and
incapacitation effects through arrests, but they recognize that
other strategies, such as building community partnerships, help to
reduce fear and decrease crime rates.
If the theory advocated by Gottfredson and
Hirschi is sound, however, community policing and deterrence
effects should have little impact on crime rates.
|
ANALYZING PROGRAM
EFFECTIVENESS
The crime policy arena is filled with assertions about what is
or is not effective in reducing crime. Many of these assertions are
based only on anecdotal evidence, since all too often there is a
lack of empirical research with which to judge the accuracy of
specific claims. Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) suggests, for
example, that COPS funding for 53 officers in Muskegon County,
Michigan, is responsible for the county's 26.6 percent reduction in
crime.1
Observing that COPS grants flowed to a particular community,
however, and that the crime rate has dropped is not conclusive
evidence that the grants helped to decrease crime. As the CBO and
others have noted, socioeconomic factors and other criminal justice
policies may play a significant role in changing crime rates.
Assertions about the effectiveness of COPS grants therefore are
not credible if factors that influence crime are ignored in the
analysis. Anecdotal examples of lower crime rates in a community
that received the COPS grants could be offset by other examples of
communities that received COPS grants and experienced increases in
crime. For example:
- From 1994 to 1998, Delaware received over $19.6 million in COPS
grants, and its violent crime rate increased by 35.9
percent.2
Selective observation occurs when limited information is used to
draw broad conclusions. The person making the conclusion may,
however unknowingly, selectively observe something that he or she
wants to see occur and ignore other important factors that could
alter the conclusion. Anecdotal evidence is often derived through
such selective observation, making it difficult to evaluate the
merits of differing explanations. Testing competing theories is
difficult because the anecdotal method is unable to control for
other factors that could influence the observations.
The statistical approach used by Heritage, by comparison,
includes control variables and allows for the inclusion of many
cases in order to test competing hypotheses.
1. Senator Debbie Stabenow, "Stabenow
Urges President Bush to Restore COPS Funding," press release, March
23, 2001, at http://stabenow.senate.gov/press/032301cops.htm
(April 23, 2001)
2. Calculations based on data from U.S.
Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Crime in
the United States 1994 (Washington, D.C., 1995), p. 69, and Crime
in the United States 1998 (Washington, D.C., 1999), p. 75.
|
DATA ON THE COPS GRANTS
To analyze the relationship of COPS grants
to violent crime rates, Heritage researchers used data on each COPS
grant; violent crime offenses and arrests at the county level;
admissions to prison for violent crimes by county; county
socioeconomic factors (employment, population characteristics, age
distribution, and income per capita); and local government
expenditures.
Data on the amount and type of funding
received by the local law enforcement agencies under the COPS
program were taken from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Office
of Community Oriented Policing Services Management System
(CMS) database. Using a unique identification number for law
enforcement agencies, known as the originating number (ORI), grants
from 1994 to 1998 were matched with counties where grantees are
located.
The CMS database provides information on
the total amount of money provided for each type of grant and the
year in which the grant was awarded. However, the total amount
awarded in a year does not always equal the amount spent that year.
COPS grants intended for the hiring of new officers are to be spent
by recipients at a declining rate over a three-year period, with
the recipient share of employment costs increasing. The hiring
grants require that after a grant is received, the recipient agency
will assume total responsibility for funding the officer's fourth
year of employment. In order to account accurately for the timing
of funds spent, Heritage analysts allocated hiring grants by a
decreasing percentage based on when the project started in the CMS
database.
Offense and arrest data for 1994 to 1998
were obtained from the Inter-university Consortium for Political
and Social Research (ICPSR) at the University of Michigan. Crime data
for each county were matched to the demographic and socioeconomic
data using Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) codes,
which are unique identifiers of counties. State prison sentencing
data for 1994 to 1998 were obtained from the ICPSR as well.
Information from the U.S. Bureau of the
Census was used for the age, sex, population density, and
racial/ethnic composition of the counties. Data for state and local
government expenditures from 1994 to 1996 were obtained from the
Census Bureau's Annual Survey of Government Finances;
expenditures for 1997 were obtained from its 1997 Census of
Governments. The Bureau of Labor
Statistics supplied county unemployment and labor force
information.
Due to incomplete reporting of crime data
for several states and the sampling procedure used by the Census
Bureau to report local government spending, securing complete data
on all of the nation's 3,141 counties was not possible. However,
complete data for all five years were available for 752 counties.
The average total population for these 752 counties during the
period in question was about 143 million people, or approximately
53.8 percent of the average total population from 1994 to 1998.
From 1994 to 1998, $5.321 billion in COPS grant funding was
dispersed around the nation. During the same period, total grants
to the 752 counties in this study amounted to $2.267 billion, or
42.6 percent of the grants allocated to all 3,141 counties.
THE HERITAGE FINDINGS
The analysis presented in this CDA Report
considers the effects of COPS grants on county-level violent crime
rates. Holding socioeconomic and other crime-related variables
constant can help to identify the specific effects of COPS grants
on violent crime. The results can help to determine whether COPS
grants are an effective federal crime-fighting strategy. If federal
grants for community policing are effective, the counties that
received COPS grants should have experienced a reduction in violent
crime as a result of these grants.
|
HOW TO INTERPRET THE
HERITAGE FINDINGS
This CDA Report contains the
results of statistical analyses of county-level data. The
statistical tests were conducted to isolate the independent effects
of a number of demographic and socioeconomic factors on violent
crime rates in order to measure the effect of the COPS grants
alone. Because the statistical models in this study include such
factors as minority population percentage, unemployment rates, and
local government spending, the effect of each variable on the
violent crime rate can be isolated.
A finding of "statistically
insignificant" indicates that the effect of a particular variable
is, for statistical purposes, no different from zero. For example,
if the relationship between the percentage of county residents aged
15 to 24 and violent crime rates is statistically insignificant,
the percentage of 15- to 24-year-olds in the counties, when
combined with other variables, cannot be used to explain changes in
violent crime rates for the duration of this study.
This analysis uses the 95 percent
confidence level as the minimum standard for a variable to be
considered statistically significant. When a variable is
statistically significant at the 95 percent confidence level, there
is a 5 percent chance that the variable does not have a
statistically measurable impact on the dependent variable.
|
What the Study Shows
Supporters of the COPS program believe
that federal funding of additional police officers through hiring
or redeployment of officers pays a dividend in the form of reduced
crime rates. To examine this hypothesis, the Heritage statistical
analysis of violent crime controlled for the effects of COPS
grants, the probability of going to prison, non-white population,
15- to 24-year-old population, income per capita, unemployment
rate, labor force participation, population density, the national
violent crime rate trend, and the previous year's violent crime
rate. Table 1 presents the findings from the Heritage model.
Grants for Hiring and Redeployment of
Officers.
Analysis of the data shows that COPS grants for the hiring of
additional police officers and grants for redeployment, known as
Making Officer Redeployment Effective (MORE) grants, do not have a
statistically significant effect on reducing violent crime rates. These
major components of the COPS program appear to be ineffective in
reducing violent crime.
There are two possible explanations for
the ineffectiveness of the COPS hiring and redeployment grants: (1)
the actual number of officers "added" to the street by these grants
may be substantially less than the funding indicates, and (2)
merely paying for the operational expenses of law enforcement
agencies without a clear crime-fighting objective is likely to be
ineffective in reducing violent crime.
According to the 1997 Department of
Justice review of crime-fighting programs, community policing with
no clear strategy for targeting crime risk factors, such as
high-crime "hot spots" and illegal firearm possession, is
ineffective in reducing crime. The review further states
that "While the COPS Program language has stressed a community
policing approach, there is no evidence that community policing per
se reduces crime without a clear focus on a crime risk factor
objective."
In many instances, COPS
hiring and redeployment grants may have been used for community
policing in name only. Grant recipient agencies may have done the
paperwork to apply for the grants without ever fully implementing
community policing techniques. For example, a DOJ study found that
the COPS grantees too frequently established partnerships with the
community that were both merely nominal and primarily temporary.
Miscellaneous Grants.
The results of the Heritage analysis also indicate that COPS
miscellaneous grants, including funds for addressing such specific
problems as gangs, domestic violence, and illegal use of firearms
by youth, have a statistically significant effect on reducing
violent crime rates. For each additional $1 of miscellaneous COPS
grants per capita, the expected value of violent crime declined by
almost 16.2 incidents per 100,000 people. The effectiveness of
these miscellaneous grants may be due to the fact that the agencies
receiving them were already better at identifying and solving
problems than other agencies. A different analysis that accounts
for the individual effects of the miscellaneous grants might find
that some of the grants are ineffective.
|
WHAT DO
"ELASTICITIES" MEAN?
The elasticities for the statistically
significant independent variables are presented in Chart 1. The
elasticity figures represent the percentage change in the expected
violent crime rate given a 1 percent change in a particular
independent variable. A 1 percent increase in COPS miscellaneous
grants was associated with a 0.004 percent decline in the violent
crime rate. Increasing the probability of going to state prison
after an arrest for a violent crime was associated with a 0.038
percent decrease in the violent crime rate. A 1 percent increase in
state and local police expenditures per capita was associated with
a 0.099 percent decrease in the violent crime rate, while total
state and local expenditures per capita were associated with a
0.135 percent increase in violent crime rates.
Changes in the demographic and
socioeconomic variables appear to have a greater effect on violent
crime rates than funding does, holding other variables constant. A
1 percent increase in the non-white population is associated with a
2.79 percent decrease in violent crime rates. Increasing the labor
force participation rate by 1 percent is associated with a 0.768
percent decrease in violent crime rates. A 1 percent increase in
income per capita is associated with a 0.514 percent increase in
violent crime rates.The remaining variables fail to have
statistically significant effects on violent crime rates, so the
values of their elasticities can be considered no different from
zero.
|
State and Local Government
Spending. This analysis finds that state and local police
expenditures per capita have a negative and statistically
significant effect on violent crime in the next year, while total
state and local government expenditures per capita have a small
positive and statistically significant relationship to violent
crime rates. The model indicates that a $1 per capita increase in
state and local police expenditures reduces violent crime by 1.3
incidents per 100,000 residents. A $1 increase in state and local
total government expenditures per capita correlates with an
increase in violent crime by 0.09 incidents per 100,000 residents.
This finding may reflect the association of high-crime counties
with higher social welfare spending.
Probability of Going to Prison.
The prison probability variable has a negative and
statistically significant relationship with violent crime rates. A 1
percent increase in the probability of going to a state prison
after an arrest for a violent crime reduces the expected amount of
violent crime by 1.2 incidents per 100,000 residents. These results
support the view that increasing the costs for committing violent
crimes has deterrent and incapacitation effects.
Non-White Population.
This analysis controls for the percentage of county population
that is non-white. Changes in behavior in minority communities are
influential in reducing violent crimes. The percentage of the
population that is non-white has a large negative and statistically
significant relationship to violent crime rates. The model predicts
that a county with a non-white population that is 1 percent higher
than another county's would have 57.2 fewer violent crimes per
100,000 residents, holding the other variables constant. These results
are consistent with data from the National Crime Victimization
Survey, which found that between 1995 to 1998, the violent crime
victimization rate for black and other minority groups declined by
24.7 percent and 32.5 percent, respectively. Over the same time period,
the violent crime victimization rate for whites declined by only
15.8 percent.
This variable captures the documented but
largely unexplained phenomenon that minority communities
experienced a larger than average drop in violent crime over the
duration of this study. Given the short time span of the study
(four years), this analysis captures more cross-sectional
differences between counties than time-series differences within
counties. Further research is required to account for the changes
in violent crime rates for minority groups.
Income.
Increased personal income per capita has a small positive and
statistically significant relationship to violent crime rates. A $1
increase in income per capita is associated with an increase of
0.01 violent crime incidents per 100,000 residents. This result may
suggest that counties experiencing increased personal income
attract more violent predators than less prosperous counties
would.
Employment Levels.
Increases in the civilian labor force have a negative and
statistically significant relationship to violent crime rates. For every
1 percent increase in civilian labor force participation, violent
crime is expected to decrease by 8.8 incidents per 100,000.
Remaining Variables.
The remaining socioeconomic variables (15- to 24-year-old
population percentage, unemployment rate, and population density)
fail to have a statistically significant relationship to violent
crime rates.
Alternative Explanations
Recognizing that clearance rates are an
important variable for measuring deterrence, they were included in
a second statistical test. A third test was performed
excluding both violent crime clearance rates and prison probability
variables.
Results for each of the COPS grant types in the alternative
specifications are similar to the original analysis. The hiring and
redeployment grants' effects on violent crime rates are
statistically no different from zero. The miscellaneous COPS grants
have a statistically significant relationship with reduced violent
crime rates.
CONCLUSION
The central argument for the COPS program
is that providing additional funds to state and local law
enforcement agencies above what they would typically spend on
operational expenses is effective in the fight against crime. The
results of this CDA analysis, however, indicate that the major
components of the COPS program--its hiring and redeployment
grants--have failed to show a statistically measurable effect on
reducing violent crime rates at the county level.
The COPS hiring and redeployment grants
were intended to enable the federal government to help fund the
operational costs of local law enforcement agencies and to increase
the overall number of officers on their forces--functions that
traditionally are the sole responsibility of state and local
governments.
The findings of the CDA analysis suggest
that merely paying for the operational expenses of police
departments is ineffective in reducing violent crime. There are
two possible explanations: (1) the actual number of officers added
to the street from these grants may be substantially less than the
funding indicates, and (2) merely paying for the operational
expenses of law enforcement agencies without a clear crime-fighting
objective is likely to be ineffective in reducing violent
crime.
The community policing movement preceded
the COPS program, and communities throughout the nation would have
continued to incorporate the concept into their work without
federal involvement. The acceptance of federal COPS funding by
local law enforcement agencies does not necessarily mean that
community policing techniques will be implemented successfully or
improved upon. A firm commitment to working with residents of a
community to solve their crime problems may be more important than
having the federal government pay for operational expenses.
This analysis also shows that the
miscellaneous COPS grants, a minor component of the program that is
targeted to specific activities like domestic violence and gangs,
are more effective in reducing violent crime than are the hiring
and redeployment grants. This difference in impact may be explained
by the differences between the grants themselves. Miscellaneous
grants are intended to help law enforcement agencies tackle
specific problems; hiring and redeployment grants simply pay for
operational costs and are less likely to target specific problems.
Federal funds are not necessary to enable local law enforcement
agencies to respond to specific problems; nevertheless, the
miscellaneous grants may have flowed to agencies that already were
better at identifying and solving problems that contribute to
violence. Thus, the statistical findings of this study may
overstate the actual effectiveness of the miscellaneous grants.
David B. Muhlhausen is a Policy
Analyst in the Center for Data Analysis at The Heritage
Foundation.
Data Sources
County data on offenses and arrests for
1994 to 1998 were obtained from the Inter-university Consortium for
Political and Social Research (ICPSR) at the University of
Michigan. Crime data for each county
were matched by Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS)
codes, which provide unique identification numbers for each county.
State prison admissions data for 1994 to 1998 also were obtained
from the ICPSR.
Information about age, gender, and
racial/ethnic composition of counties and population density was
obtained from the U.S. Bureau of the Census. Data on state and local
government expenditures from 1993 to 1996 were obtained from the
Census Bureau's Annual Survey of Government Finances; state and
local expenditure amounts for 1997 were obtained from its 1997
Census of Governments. Unemployment rates and data
to calculate labor force participation were obtained from the
Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Data on the COPS grants are based on the
COPS Management System (CMS) database produced by the U.S.
Department of Justice Office of Community Oriented Policing
Services in 2000. Heritage analysts matched individual police
agencies that participate in the Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI) Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program.
Allocation of Grants by County
The CMS database does not indicate the
county or counties covered by COPS grant recipients. Heritage
analysts calculated the amount of COPS funding for counties using
information provided in the 1994 to 1998 Uniform Crime Reporting
Program Data computer files. For each year, this file
contains separate records for police agencies listed in the UCR
system for that year. Among the variables that are part of each
record are the counties served by an agency. The file lists up to
three of the counties served by each police agency that serves more
than one county. There is a special identifier for statewide
agencies.
For purposes of this analysis, grants made
to a police agency were allocated only to the first county that is
listed among the potential counties listed as served. In effect,
this means that in the case of an agency serving multiple (up to
three) counties, all of an agency's COPS grant awards are allocated
to the principal county that is served by that agency. The decision
to adopt this approach was taken after an analysis of all of the
grants awarded between 1994 and 1996. Allocating the COPS grant
money to the counties served by multi-county agencies on the basis
of the population served would have affected the distribution of
less than 0.24 percent of the funds awarded during those years.
A proportion of the COPS funding is not
allocated to a county under our methodology. Specifically:
Grants made to state police and other
statewide crime-fighting agencies are not allocated to a specific
county. In practice, it was not possible to construct an accurate
formula that would reflect the actual spending across the different
counties in a state.
Grants made to agencies or other
organizations that could not be matched to an agency entry in the
UCR were not allocated to any county. In some cases, the grant was
awarded not to an existing police agency but to a consortium that
consists of several agencies (i.e., grants for conferences). In
other cases, the grant was awarded not to a police agency but to
another entity such as a research institution or a community
anti-crime organization. Many of these grants are related to
crime-fighting activities on a tangential and non-localized basis.
Another possibility is that clerical errors may have been made in
the reporting of an agency's identification number that was used to
match grants with police agencies. Finally, a number of police
agencies have never participated in the Uniform Crime Reporting
system and so are not included in the FBI's list of participating
agencies.
Heritage analysts allocated to a county
only those grant monies that could be clearly identified as awarded
to a law enforcement agency operating in that county. Excluding the
grants that could not be matched with the UCR databases had the
effect of omitting grants that may be used for non-policing
purposes. Grants to police agencies that do not participate in the
UCR Program were excluded from the analysis because the dependent
variable (violent crime rates) in the study is based on data from
agencies that participate in the UCR. By excluding grants that are
not used directly to fight crime and agencies that do not report
crimes to the FBI, this methodology also avoids two potential
sources of bias that would tend to reduce the statistical
significance of the impact of the COPS grants on violent crime
rates.
Allocation of Grants by Year
Because COPS grants for the hiring of
officers are intended to be spent at a declining rate over a
three-year period, the hiring grants were allocated in a declining
percentage, starting in the year identified by the project start
date in the COPS Management System (CMS) database. The CMS
database includes data for 551 agencies that reported their
spending patterns over the three-year life of their hiring grants.
The median percentage of funds spent in each year was
calculated.
To test the assumption about the spending
pattern, Heritage analysts conducted a sensitivity analysis of the
high and low points of the 95 percent confidence interval for the
median spending pattern in each year. In the first part of Appendix
Table A-1, the initial median and 95 percent confidence intervals
for the spending pattern of the 551 agencies are presented. The
lower half of Appendix Table A-1 includes the median and 95 percent
confidence intervals that have been normalized for 100 percent. The
normalized median spending pattern for the first year of the hiring
grants was 38.3 percent. The normalized median spending patterns
for the second and third years were 33.04 percent and 28.6 percent,
respectively.
For the sensitivity analysis, the
normalized lower-bound and upper-bound confidence intervals for the
median spending pattern were used for the allocation of the hiring
grants by year. For instance, the analysis using the lower-bound
confidence intervals assumes that money spent in the first year of
the hiring grants was less than the median spending pattern.
Variables Used
A number of independent or explanatory
variables thought to influence violent crime rates are included in
the analysis. These variables include COPS grants, state and local
expenditures, and demographic and socioeconomic variables. In each
model, the dependent variable is the violent crime rate. The county
violent crime rate consists of the total number of homicides,
forcible rapes, robberies, and aggravated assaults per 100,000
residents. The independent variables are described below.
COPS Grants.
Per capita COPS grants were calculated by aggregating the grants
going to individual law enforcement agencies to the county level
and then dividing by county population. COPS grants were assigned
to one of three categories.
-
Hiring Grants Per
Capita. COPS grants for the hiring of police officers by law
enforcement agencies within a county are estimated for each year of
the three-year life of the grants. Then the annual estimated
amounts are divided by the county's total population. This variable
measures the amount of COPS hiring grant spending per county
resident.
-
MORE Grants Per
Capita. Making Officer Redeployment Effective (MORE) grants
were designed to redeploy officers from administrative tasks to
community policing. These grants are intended to free current
officer time available for community policing by providing funds
for equipment, technology, civilian personnel, or overtime. The
grants are assumed to be spent during the year of their project
start date as identified by the CMS database.
-
Miscellaneous Grants Per Capita.
Miscellaneous grants include funding for demonstration projects
related to community policing, funding to combat methamphetamine
use and gang violence, and grants that encourage the hiring of
military veterans. As with the other COPS
grants, the miscellaneous grants are calculated on a per capita
basis. These grants are assumed to be spent during the year of
their project start date as identified by the CMS database.
Crime Variables.
Two principal violent crime variables were considered in this
analysis.
-
Prison Sentences Per Violent Crime.
This variable measures the probability of going to state prison
after being arrested for a violent crime. It is computed on a
county-by-county basis. An increase in this probability
Model Specification
Statistical studies of the effects of
criminal justice policies on crime are often plagued by a problem
known as simultaneity. This problem occurs because
rising crime rates result in increased demand for law enforcement,
which leads to increases in police expenditures. Thus, changes in
criminal justice policies, such as higher expenditures, often
coincide with rising crime. In the case of police expenditures,
governments are likely to increase police spending and apply for
funding such as the COPS grants in reaction to increasing crime
rates.
To address the problem of simultaneity,
Heritage analysts lagged expenditure variables one year. Lagging
COPS grants one year accounts for the fact that it can take
considerable time to hire and train officers or purchase and
implement the use of new technologies funded under the grants. It
is reasonable to expect that this amount of time would be required
before the award of a grant could be transferred into actions that
could change the violent crime rate.
Lagging the dependent variable (violent
crime rates) one year as an independent variable reduces problems
associated with autocorrelation. Autocorrelation of error
terms causes parameter estimates to be inefficient, so
statistically significant tests will be invalid.
The use of lagged variables limits the
number of years that could be included in this study. The
methodology employed by the Inter-university Consortium for
Political and Social Research (ICPSR) to create yearly county
offense and arrest data sets changed in 1994. Therefore, county
crime data prior to 1994 cannot be compared with data for 1994 and
subsequent years.
Due to this change in methodology and the lagging of the violent
crime rates on the right-hand side of the models, Heritage analysts
were able to examine violent crime only for the period from 1995 to
1998. The models in this report use lagged values for police
expenditures so that the effects of COPS grants administered in
1994 are captured.
Each county's total population is used to
weight the data. Weighting by population helps to reduce the effect
of huge swings in violent crime rates in small counties. A
reduction of 100 violent crimes per 100,000 residents in a county
of 5,000 people is not the same as a similar rate reduction in a
county populated by 2 million people.
The model also includes a trend term (the
national violent crime rate) that is intended to capture the effect
of unobserved factors influencing changes in violent crime across
the country.
The models used in this analysis control
for cross-sectional fixed effects (individual differences related
to each county), which control for unobserved factors that cause
violent crime rates in a particular county to differ from violent
crime rates in other counties. The fixed-effects model helps
control for differences in county violent crime rates that are not
accounted for by the independent variables.
Including the specific differences
attributable to each county in the fixed-effects model helps
control for possible selection bias in the COPS program's
allocation of grants. Selection bias may have occurred because
agencies that are more innovative and better at fighting crime are
more likely to apply for and receive COPS grants than other
agencies. The fixed-effects model helps control for selection bias
by giving each county an intercept, which allows individual
differences of the counties to be absorbed. The fixed-effects model
helps reduce selection bias, but it may fail to eliminate it
entirely. The final results may be biased toward finding COPS
grants to be more effective than they were in reality.
Using the White's test, heteroscedasticity
was identified. Though parameter estimates remain unbiased when
heteroscedasticity is present, the parameter estimates are
inefficient. The standard errors for the parameter estimates will
be inconsistent; thus, hypothesis tests will not be valid. To
correct for this problem, the Huber/White/sandwich "robust"
estimator of variance was used to produce consistent standard
errors for the calculation of statistical significance tests.
Alternative Tests
The use of violent crime clearance rates
may pose difficult problems because the number of violent crimes
appears in the numerator of the dependent variable (violent crime
rates) and in the denominator of the independent variable violent
crime clearance rates. This occurrence may cause a
relationship between clearance rates and crime to be overstated in
a negative direction. Further, some may argue
that the use of clearance rates in the model partially captures the
effect of COPS funding. To avoid these possible problems, Heritage
analysts did not control for the violent crime clearance rate in
the original analysis.
When violent crime clearance rates are
included in the model, the statistical significance of the
relationship between COPS grants and violent crime rates remains
unchanged. (See Appendix Table A-2 for results of the analysis that
controls for violent crime clearance rates.) The hiring and MORE
grants failed to have an impact on violent crime rates, while the
miscellaneous grants did continue to have an effect on reducing
violent crime rates. The relationship between the probability of
going to prison and reducing violent crime remained statistically
significant. As can be seen in Appendix Table A-2, the statistical
significance of the socioeconomic variables remained constant with
the absence of clearance rates, except for the labor force
participation rate. When the analysts controlled for violent crime
clearance rates, the relationship between labor force participation
rates and violent crime rates was statistically insignificant.
Violent crime clearance rates had a negative and statistically
significant relationship with violent crime rates. A 1 percent
increase in the violent crime clearance rate reduced violent crime
by almost 4.6 incidents per 100,000 residents.
Some may speculate that the probability of
a prison sentence might be endogenous, since it might both be
affected by violent crime rates and affect them. Communities
experiencing increased crime may put more pressure on their
criminal justice system's ability to arrest, prosecute, and
incarcerate criminals. To eliminate this problem, the analysis
presented in Table A-3 omits both the clearance and prison
variables. As can be seen in Table A-3, the statistical
significance of the COPS grants and other variables remains
unchanged from the previous analysis. The hiring and redeployment
grants were not effective as a violent crime reduction
strategy.
Sensitivity Analysis
To test the robustness of our findings for
the effect of COPS grants on violent crime, the models were
re-estimated using the low and high points of the 95 percent
confidence intervals for the median spending patterns used by
grantees for the COPS hiring grants. Regressions using the
lower-bound point of the 95 percent confidence interval assume that
a smaller portion of the grants was spent in the first year,
causing more funds to be spent in the later years. The opposite
distribution occurs when the spending pattern is based on the
upper-bound point of the 95 percent confidence interval. Under this
assumption, grantees spend a larger portion of funds in the first
year of the grant, thus leaving less funding available for the
remaining years. See Table A-4 through Table A-9 for analyses using
different spending patterns for the hiring grants.
The results of testing different
assumptions about the spending patterns are similar to the original
analysis. The hiring and MORE grants failed to have an impact on
violent crime, while the miscellaneous grants did continue to have
a statistically significant relationship with reduced violent crime
rates.
In response to possible concerns that a
simultaneous relationship between violent crime and police
expenditures does not exist, Heritage analysts re-estimated the
models without lagging the expenditure variables. Due to space
limitations, the results in tabular form are not presented. For all
three models, none of the COPS grants, including the miscellaneous
grants, had a statistically significant relationship with violent
crime rates. To determine whether
changing the spending pattern affects the findings when
current-year spending variables are used, we re-estimated the
models using the lower- and upper-bound points of the 95 percent
confidence interval for the median spending pattern. All of the
current-year COPS grants failed to have a statistically significant
relationship with changes in violent crime rates.
Another set of analyses were done with the
FBI's UCR Part I crime rate as the dependent variable and lagged
one year as an independent variable. The hiring and MORE grants
failed to have an impact on Part I crimes, while the miscellaneous
grants had a statistically significant relationship with reduced
Part I crime rates.
Tables
Regression
Results:
Estimated Effects of Independent Variables on Violent Crime Rates,
1995-1998
| Table
A-4 |
Model Includes Hiring Grants Calculated Using the
Lower-Bound Spending Pattern |
| Table
A-5 |
Model Include Hiring Grants Calculated Using the
Lower-Bound Spending Pattern and Includes the Violent Crime
Clearance Rate |
| Table
A-6 |
Model Include Hiring Grants Calculated Using the
Lower-Bound Spending Pattern and Excludes Violent Crime Clearance
Rates and the Probability of Going to Prison |
| Table
A-7 |
Model Includes Hiring Grants Calculated Using the
Upper-Bound Spending Pattern |
| Table
A-8 |
Model Includes Hiring Grants Calculated Using the
Upper-Bound Spending Pattern and Includes Violent Crime Clearance
Rates |
| Table
A-9 |
Model Includes Hiring Grants Calculated Using the
Upper-Bound Spending Pattern and Excludes Violent Crime Clearance
Rates and the Probability of Goin to Prison |
Endnotes