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More police = less crime: This isn't just a view motivated by self-interest; North American and European research find it to be the case

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Last week, a lead Vancouver Sun editorial (Surprise, surprise: Underpoliced Canada is no longer a safe haven) described recent gun violence, the shattering of our illusion of safety, and observed that Canadian police per capita rates lag behind those in other industrialized countries.

While we agree with the majority of the editorial, we disagree with the comment "There's no hard evidence that the level of crime will drop if the number of police officers rises." Recent real-world research dispels this view.

Two months ago, researchers from the University College of the Fraser Valley and SFU released a study concluding that police numbers have not kept pace with the burgeoning workload.

Not only is Canada underpoliced when compared with other industrialized countries, but B.C. lags behind Ontario and Quebec in police per capita rates, despite our higher crime rates. Changes in legislation and case law have made investigations more complex and time-consuming, resulting in decreased policing capacity.

In the recent civic elections, crime was a major concern for voters in all regions of the Lower Mainland, and two of the three major political parties in Vancouver campaigned on the platform of hiring 50 more police officers for 2006.

There are some who believe that homelessness, social justice, and economic equality must be addressed in order to improve community safety.

We agree that this is part of the solution; however, there are several recent studies that verify what our intuition tells us: More police officers will lead to a reduction of crime.

Why is this hard for some to believe? Most students of policing over the past three decades were exposed to the Kansas City Patrol experiment.

In the early 1970s, Kansas City was divided into different patrol districts that all had varying levels of random patrol. A follow-up study found no discernable differences in criminal activity, reported crime, or citizen fear of crime.

However, one of the authors of this study, George Kelling, has often remarked that it is dangerous to generalize and assume that an archaic deployment tactic (random patrols) means more police are ineffective.

Kelling is better known as a co-author of the "broken windows" approach to crime control, which posited that a focus on lower-level quality of life issues would lead to a reduction in more serious crimes.

The broken windows approach (targeting fare jumpers and petty crimes) was applied by New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani in the 1990s, and New York enjoyed significant decreases in both minor and serious crime in the 1990s. These new tactics were accompanied by an increase of 6,000 police officers (19 per cent) from 1990 to 1994.

Most economic research into crime is based on a model developed by economist Gary Becker, who predicted that individuals would be less likely to commit a crime when police presence increases because of the increased probability of detection and arrest.

A more recent economic study is from Steven Levitt, author of the 2005 bestseller Freakonomics. Levitt observed that police staffing increases occurred in American mayoral and gubernatorial election years, but not in off-election years. He then used the timing of the elections to examine crime rates and found that a marginal increase in the police force leads to lower crime rates.

More significant effects were observed after "natural experiments" were studied in the wake of terrorist attacks and alerts. The Economist magazine reported that the additional police officers deployed in the streets of London following the July 2005 attacks on the public transit system have contributed to reduced crime levels in the city.

In Washington D.C., nonpublic terror alert advisories were quietly accompanied by increased police patrols in the downtown National Mall area where sensitive federal buildings (White House, Congress) were located.

Researchers concluded that there was strong statistical evidence that more police reduced crime and concluded that an increase of approximately 50 per cent in police presence is expected to lead to a statistically significant reduction of between 12 to 16 per cent in the crime level.

A similar conclusion was reached by other researchers who studied crime rates in Buenos Aries following an increased police presence in the aftermath of a terrorist attack.

An analysis of data collected from 56 U.S. cities over 20 years found that increases in the number of police officers do tend to reduce crime in the subsequent year.

A similar study of crime in the Netherlands estimated that a 10 per cent increase of police resources would reduce property crime by five per cent and violent crime by seven per cent, and that the effects of more police would be greater in urban areas.

Another recent study was conducted in the city of Cincinnati after the police department became the subject of intense public scrutiny and federal monitoring after race riots.

Officers, who were afraid to take enforcement action for fear of being labelled racist, reduced their proactive policing activities by approximately 50 per cent, and the city experienced an increase in violent and property crimes of 16 per cent.

The Vancouver police department is working to implement a strategic policing plan by working closely with community partners such as crime prevention centres, and by deploying our resources effectively.

A joint study with city staff and external consultants is reviewing staffing levels and will be reporting to city council this spring.

Recent empirical studies back our view that deploying more officers will make Vancouver safer.

The residents of Vancouver desire and deserve no less.