Making Policing More Af fordable | 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

New Perspectives in Policing D e c e M b e r 2 0 1 0 

National Institute of Justice 

Making Policing More Affordable 

Managing Costs and Measuring Value in Policing 

George Gascón and Todd Foglesong 

Executive Session on Policing 

and Public Safety 

This is one in a series of papers that will be published 


as a result of the Executive Session on Policing and 


Public Safety. 


Harvard’s Executive Sessions are a convening of 


individuals of independent standing who take joint 


responsibility for rethinking and improving society’s 


responses to an issue. Members are selected based 


on their experiences, their reputation for thoughtfulness and their potential for helping to disseminate the 


work of the Session. 


In the early 1980s, an Executive Session on Policing 


helped resolve many law enforcement issues of 


the day. It produced a number of papers and 


concepts that revolutionized policing. Thirty years 


later, law enforcement has changed and NIJ and 


Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government are again 


collaborating to help resolve law enforcement issues 


of the day. 


Learn more about the Executive Session on 


Policing and Public Safety at: 


NIJ’s website: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/topics/
 

law-enforcement/executive-sessions/welcome.htm
 

Harvard’s website: http://www.hks.harvard.edu/
 

criminaljustice/executive_sessions/policing.htm
 

City governments across the United States today are 

spending a lot more money on policing than they 

did 25 years ago. According to the U.S. Department 

of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics, public expenditure on policing in the United States more than 

quadrupled between 1982 and 2006.1 As figure 1 

shows (page 2), proportionally, spending on corrections and judicial functions (courts, prosecution and 

public defense) increased over this period more than 

spending on policing. But in the last 10 years, the rate 

of increase in spending on policing has exceeded 

the spending rate for corrections and judicial functions. Between 1996 and 2006, spending on the 

police increased an average of 8.6 percent each year. 

Controlling for inflation, expenditures in this period 

increased at an annual average rate of 3.8 percent. 

Even before the onset of the financial crisis, rising 

expenditures on police departments stirred a debate 

among city managers, elected officials and police 

chiefs about how best to pay for policing.2 But the 

severity of the financial crisis and the speed with 

which local governments make budgetary decisions have cut short these conversations. Few of the 

solutions being fashioned today for the high price 

of policing address the underlying reasons for the 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 1. Government Spending on Three Criminal Justice Functions, 1982-2006 Spending (Billions of Dollars)

120

100

80

60

40

20

0

Corrections 

(+660%) 

Police 

(+420%) 

Judicial 

(+503%) 

82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06

Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics, “Justice Expenditure and Employment Extracts, 2006”; 

http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=1022. 

2 | New Perspectives in Policing 

accelerated growth in spending. Nor do they assess 

what this increased spending means for city governments, residents and the future of the profession. 

In some cities, precipitous shortfalls in city budgets have caused city managers, unions and police 

chiefs to take drastic decisions, cutting costs in 

unsustainable ways. In San Diego, Calif., Phoenix, 

Tulsa, Okla. and Tampa, Fla., police departments 

have stopped hiring sworn officers, started shedding employees and eliminated civilian positions 

altogether. In Oakland, Calif., Kansas City, Mo., and 

Austin, Texas, sworn officers have accepted pay cuts 

and demotions to preserve staffing levels. In none 

of these cities has the federal subsidy for hiring new 

officers proved sufficient to meet local demands or 

otherwise offset the costs of policing. 

In other cities, police executives have insisted on 

expanding the number of sworn personnel, arguing that more officers are needed either to forestall a 

crime wave or sustain reductions in crime, the costs 

and benefits of which, they believe, are undervalued. 

In Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and Charlotte, 

N.C., police leaders have argued that expenditure on 

policing is a city’s investment in its own well-being 

that will pay for itself in future economic growth.3 

Although these claims advance a business proposition for police departments that might well provoke 

a fresh round of research on the social costs of crime, 

they do not grapple directly with the reasons for rising expenditure. 

This paper tries to create space for a careful conversation about the challenge of paying for policing. It 

starts by asking two questions. First, what is driving up police expenditures? Are police departments 

growing and providing more services to more people, 

are the costs of providing these same services simply going up, or are other factors responsible for the 

increase? Second, what have cities and their residents 

received in return for their investment in policing? 

Are there fewer crimes, a greater sense of safety and 

more satisfaction with police services? What has 

happened to the bottom line in policing? How have 

communities benefited from the new spending? 

This paper tries to answer these questions by examining the costs of policing in one city, Mesa, Ariz. 

The authors could not collect information from 

enough departments across the United States to systematically compare costs in midsized cities, so this 

paper instead compares spending in Mesa over the 

last decade with the spending of neighboring cities 

in Arizona and with 10 similarly sized jurisdictions 

that shared their budget data with the authors. The 

paper also examines the impact of this new spending, using such conventional measures of police 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Making Policing More Af fordable | 3 

value as the amount of recorded crime, citizens’ 

sense of safety and call response times. Despite 

the limitations of these measures, which numerous academics, police chiefs and the Commission 

on the Accreditation of Law Enforcement Agencies 

(CALEA) have repeatedly pointed out, they remain 

the indicators that shape professional assessments 

of the value of policing. Because they are still the 

“measures that matter,” this paper relies on them 

to evaluate the impact of new police spending on 

communities.4 

Finally, the paper considers a series of tactics now 

being tested in a few cities and police departments 

for managing the rising costs of policing, including efforts to cut spending, raise productivity and 

re-engineer operations. Perhaps none of these 

tactics, by themselves or in combination, yields a 

sustainable strategy for paying for policing in the 

future. But their consideration here should support 

future conversations about restructuring police services, reorganizing departments, and building new 

measures of the value of policing that the present 

financial crisis demands. 

Rising Costs of Policing in Mesa 

A quarter-century ago, the city of Mesa, Ariz., was 

a quiet suburb of Phoenix with a large number of 

winter residents and an estimated population of 

165,000. In 2008, Mesa had an estimated population 

of 465,000 and was measured as the nation’s 39th 

largest city. Between 1982 and 2008, as the city’s 

population grew, so did the amount of land annexed 

for residential and commercial development. As a 

result, the Mesa Police Department now services 

twice the territory it covered in 1982. 

Along with this growth, Mesa increased police 

expenditures: In 2008, the Mesa Police Department 

spent more than $152 million, more than 10 times 

the sum in 1982. As shown in figure 2, this increase 

in spending not only exceeded the rate of population 

growth, it also far outpaced inflation. Real spending 

on policing, as measured in 1982 dollars, increased 

by a factor of five, from $12.5 million in 1982 to $67.8 

million in 2008. Although the rate of increase in real 

spending slowed over the last decade, the police 

department’s budget actually grew by an average 

of 8 percent each year during this period. 

Figure 2. Population Growth and Spending on Policing in Mesa, Ariz., 1982-2008 

160 

500 

140 450 

400 

City Population 

Actual Spending Adjusted Spending 

(1982 dollars) 

83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 

120 

82 08 

Estimate of Population (Thousands)

Police Spending (Millions of Dollars)

350 

300 

250 

200 

150 

100 

20

50 

0 0

Sources: Bureau of Justice Statistics, “Law Enforcement Expenditure”; Mesa Police Department. 

40 

60 

80 

100 

Rising Personnel Costs as a Component 

of Policing Costs 

One reason that Mesa’s spending on policing 

increased so much between 1982 and 2008 is the 

city’s expansion of its police force. In 1997, the 

Mesa Police Department employed 643 sworn officers and 354 civilian staff. By 2008, Mesa employed 

855 sworn officers and 549 civilians — increases 

of 33 and 54 percent, respectively. However, the 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4 | New Perspectives in Policing 

Table 1. Mesa Police Department Spending, 1999 Versus 2008 

Fiscal Year 1999 ($) Fiscal Year 2008 ($) Difference ($) % of Total Increase 

Personnel (total) 71,199,015 134,216,890 63,017,875 85.1% 

Salaries 55,905,316 105,882,868 49,977,552 67.5%

Benefits 15,293,699 28,334,022 13,040,323 17.6%

Other Services* 9,158,233 16,365,248 7,207,015 9.7% 

Commodities 2,265,550 5,643,573 3,378,023 4.6% 

Capital 4,541,708 4,994,373 452,655 0.6% 

Total $87,164,506 $161,220,084 $74,055,578 100% 

* Includes investigations and jail costs, fleet maintenance and a large number of service contracts. 

Source: Mesa Police Department. 

expansion of the police force in Mesa explains only 

a part of the increased spending. Another reason 

is that per-unit labor costs for both sworn officers 

and civilian employees are much higher than they 

were 10 years ago. As table 1 shows, between 1999 

and 2008, Mesa’s total spending on police personnel increased by $63 million and accounted for 85 

percent of new expenditures. 

Higher salaries for sworn officers are one reason for 

the increase in personnel costs.5 Another reason is 

the escalating price of benefits. Benefits are the fastest growing component of the police budget in Mesa 

today. In 2007 alone, the cost of police pensions rose 

33 percent. 

Many police chiefs around the country see rising 

labor costs as a result of greater mobility among 

young officers and thus stiffer competition in the 

labor market. This may be a sign of greater uniformity and cohesion in the profession, but it inflates 

the price of policing. At a recent meeting of the 

NIJ Executive Sessions on Policing at the Kennedy 

School of Government, one police chief complained of a “bidding war” for labor between police 

departments. “As we fight to compete in the market,” 

he explained, “we are driving our prices up. If you’ve 

got a $5,000 signing bonus, I’ve got to go to $10,000; 

otherwise I’ve got so many [empty] positions. And 

I’m thinking that we are going to have a market rate 

correction; it just cannot keep going this way.”6 

Increase in Demand for Police Labor 

Even if higher labor costs explain a large portion of 

the increase in spending, it is not obvious why Mesa 

hired more police labor in the first place. In fact, the 

increase in the number of sworn officers might seem 

paradoxical in light of the nearly uninterrupted 

decline in reported crime over the last 10 years. 

Major recorded crime in Mesa fell steadily between 

2000 and 2007, as it did in many other cities around 

the nation: for example, violent crime in Mesa fell 7 

percent and property crime fell 14 percent. So, why 

is the demand for police labor increasing despite 

these reductions in crime? 

When the authors asked police officers in Mesa 

this very question, the officers gave three types of 

answers. First, some officers say there has been a 

steady increase in public demand for police services. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Making Policing More Af fordable | 5 

Patrol officers in particular believe there has been 

an incessant increase in the number of calls for 

service (although the data contradict this impression), and they believe many calls to which they 

respond are unwarranted. Responding to false 

burglar alarms, loose dogs, neighborhood disturbances and other inconveniences make many 

officers feel like they are running “from call to call 

to call” without solving underlying problems or 

producing a lot of additional safety. 

A second answer was that police work in general has become more complex over time. Senior 

officers in particular say that changes in the regulatory regime of policing, including more detailed 

rules governing the response to domestic violence 

and juvenile delinquency, have made routine 

police work more complex and time-consuming. In 

addition, the proliferation of gang crimes, and the 

growth of identity theft and new types of cybercrime, along with new demands from the federal 

government, have compounded the complexity of 

police work. As a result, officers said, each individual officer today responds to fewer calls for service 

and requires more time to do so. 

A third answer, heard more from supervisors 

and senior management than line officers, is that 

there are considerable inefficiencies in police 

work today. “Many basic operations have been 

untouched by the technological revolution,” said 

one lieutenant. Where new technologies such as 

laptops, video cameras and computer-aided dispatch have been installed, they are not always 

being used efficiently, said others. One officer 

even suspected that, because of the suboptimal 

use of new technology, police departments today 

might actually be doing “less with more.” 

Police executives from other parts of the country 

share many of these impressions, particularly concerns about efficiency in police work. “Wasteful 

practices have their constituencies,” one chief 

likes to say, and many chiefs rue the surplus of 

officers at crime scenes, unnecessary attendance 

at calls to which the fire department responds 

first or better, and a lot of idle time after incidents 

doing follow-up work. Many police executives also 

see an uncontrolled expansion in the demand for 

services, and with it a subtle and important shift 

in the mission and role of police officers. “We have 

become the social agency of first resort for the 

poor,” said one chief. Added another, “We need 

to reexamine police processes to determine just 

what requires the armed authority of the state in 

your living room.”7 

Detailed empirical research into the changing roles of officers, their contact with citizens 

and the use of technology at work might help 

police departments and researchers assess these 

and other hypotheses about complexity and 

inefficiency in police work, although such an 

investigation has yet to begin. The authors tried 

to investigate these claims about changes in the 

character and volume of calls for service, but in 

2008 the Mesa Police Department’s data system 

did not code repeat calls and the identity of the 

caller in ways that would permit a textured analysis of the evolution of demand for police services. 

Still, the fact that most of these beliefs are shared 

by line officers, supervisors and chiefs across 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6 | New Perspectives in Policing 

many cities suggests that, in addition to rising costs 

of labor, structural changes in the nature of policing 

may be driving up police expenditures. 

Table 2. Mesa City Government Expenditures by Major Category, 2004 Versus 2008 

City Program Fiscal Year 2004 Fiscal Year 2008 Difference % Change 

Arts and Cultural 36,232,000 12,139,700 -24,092,300 (-66.5%) 

Building Safety 8,517,000 11,182,807 2,665,807 31.3% 

Community Development 9,358,000 8,678,592 -679,408 (-7.3%) 

Electric 22,905,000 29,039,994 6,134,994 26.8% 

Fire 47,104,000 77,299,162 30,195,162 64.1% 

Gas 22,452,000 42,982,001 20,530,001 91.4% 

Housing Services 12,453,000 12,312,000 -141,000 (-1.1%) 

Judicial 8,132,000 11,268,000 3,136,000 38.6% 

Law Enforcement 121,277,000 175,449,600 54,172,600 44.7% 

Library Services 13,026,000 13,707,280 681,280 5.2% 

Mass Transit 22,112,000 9,434,905 -12,677,095 (-57.3%) 

Parks and Recreation 27,482,000 26,761,000 -721,000 (-2.6%) 

Solid Waste Management 21,819,000 33,376,000 11,557,000 53.0% 

Streets 30,209,000 55,800,585 25,591,585 84.7% 

Wastewater 29,659,000 48,521,000 18,862,000 63.6% 

Water 53,484,000 65,732,237 12,248,237 22.9% 

ALL $486,221,000 $633,684,863 $147,463,863 30.3% 

Source: Mesa Police Department. 

Paying for Policing 

The additional spending on the police department 

in Mesa, in particular the expansion in the number 

of sworn officers, was funded largely through a special quality-of-life tax introduced in 1997. This levy 

expired in 2008. Since then, Mesa city officials and 

residents have begun to ask sharp questions about 

how to pay for policing in the future. 

Among Mesa’s budgetary concerns was whether 

the growing price tag for policing was crowding 

out spending on other important social services. 

Research from a decade ago found mixed evidence 

for this proposition, and the evidence from Mesa 

today is likewise mixed.8 Between fiscal year 2003­

4, the earliest year for which data were available, and 

fiscal year 2007-8, city expenditure on law enforcement increased 44.7 percent. Spending on streets, 

wastewater, and fire and gas increased at a considerably faster pace, as the data in table 2 show. But 

spending on arts and culture and other neighborhood services fell 66 percent and spending on mass 

transit fell 57 percent in the intervening four years. 

Spending on other types of social investments and 

city services such as parks and recreation, schools 

and economic development also declined, though 

less dramatically. Law enforcement expenditure 

comprises such a large share of total city spending, however, that the relatively modest increase 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Making Policing More Af fordable | 7 

may have a disproportionate effect on overall 

fiscal welfare. For these reasons, the scale of the 

increase in police spending remains a “substantial concern” for the city manager.9 

The reduction of other social investment spending is a concern for the Mesa Police Department, 

too. Senior officers believe that when youth summer programs are gone and the park system 

is not funded to take care of them, children get 

in trouble more frequently. One officer warned 

of the consequences of disinvestment in these 

programs: “residential burglaries go up, as do daytime car thefts and gang activity as a whole.” The 

data on recorded crime from Mesa in this period 

do not corroborate these beliefs, but residents, 

civic leaders and police officers share a concern 

that these programs are important components 

of policing and public safety. 

Expenditure on policing in Mesa is likely to continue to grow and perhaps accelerate in the future. 

Mesa in 2008 had 1.9 police officers for every 1,000 

residents, a ratio below the average for most cities 

of comparable size. A budget increase of 3 percent 

each year over the next decade — just enough to 

keep pace with projected population growth and 

inflation — would raise expenditures by more 

than $80 million. If the city hires an additional 

50 sworn officers and 10 civilians in each of the 

next 10 years, as was initially planned, spending 

on policing will double by 2017. These considerations prompt reflections not only on whether the 

department is producing the right volume, distribution and array of services, but also on whether 

the current business plan for public safety is 

sound and sustainable into the future. 

Return on Investment 

What has the Mesa Police Department accomplished with the additional money and staff? Is 

there less crime today, less fear of crime and a 

greater sense of public safety in Mesa? Are officers more accessible to residents? Are victims 

more satisfied with their treatment? Is there 

greater public confidence in policing and better 

community collaboration in crime prevention? 

These are the types of goals to which most police 

departments across the country try to make a 

contribution. So what has the additional spending 

bought? What was the return on the investment 

in policing? 

If we treat the number of recorded crimes as 

the bottom line in policing, then the return on 

the investment in Mesa appears considerable.10 

In 2008, there were 22 percent fewer recorded 

Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) Part 1 crimes 

than in 2000, despite a 20-percent increase in the 

number of residents. Since 2002, when there was 

a spike in recorded crime, there has been a 40­

percent reduction. The total decline may have 

been even greater, since the department today 

records violent crimes according to the number 

of victims, not the number of incidents as required 

by the UCR. 

Was the police department responsible for these 

changes, or did other factors, working independently or in concert with policing, cause the 

decline in recorded crime?11 Information on arrest 

activity in Mesa suggests the police department 

was largely responsible for the decline in recorded 

crime, although there is some ambiguity in the 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

8 | New Perspectives in Policing 

data and it is not clear that arrests alone explain 

the change. Figure 3, which depicts the number of 

recorded crimes and UCR Part 1 arrests in Mesa 

from 2000 to 2008, shows that, in most recent periods, the number of arrests and recorded crimes 

moved in opposite directions.12 For example, 

recorded crime declined when arrests increased 

in 2000-2001 and 2002-3, and crime went up when 

arrests declined in 2001-2 and 2003-4. Since 2006, 

levels of recorded crime and arrests for UCR Part 1 

offenses have moved in sharply different directions. 

The relationship between arrests and recorded crime 

is unlikely to be so direct, and it may be that only 

some kinds of arrests have an impact on recorded 

crime. Recent research on deterrence suggests that 

arrests that both raise the risk of detection and communicate this effect to offenders can deter crime, 

especially among repeat offenders.13 The Mesa 

Police Department has explored a compatible but 

different hypothesis since 2006, prioritizing arrests 

for serious offenses committed by young and prolific 

offenders, which are more frequently followed by 

prosecution today than before, and emphasizing 

crime prevention work with victims and greater 

subsequent attention to the neighborhoods where 

there is serious and recurrent offending. The department believes these kinds of arrests have a greater 

impact on recorded crime than arrests made before 

2006 and arrests for less serious crime, because 

they serve as a gateway for greater intervention 

and services by the police department and other 

city agencies. 

The interactive effects of arrests have yet to be modeled and measured, and other hypotheses for the 

reduction in recorded crime have not been examined. Police department activities in support of 

community crime prevention and citywide collaborations on business improvement districts may 

have had an important impact on falling levels of 

recorded crime in this same period. Greater attention to victims, especially assistance in avoiding 

future victimizations, more sustained work with atrisk youth, and helping migrant populations prevent 

burglaries, might individually have had independent crime-reducing effects or perhaps together 

multiplied the positive effects of arrests. In short, 

it seems unlikely that, by themselves, additional 

arrests and additional police officers produced the 

changes. But it also seems unlikely that the same 

amount of decline in recorded crime would have 

occurred without the additional officers and spending on policing in Mesa. 

Figure 3. Recorded Crime and Arrests for UCR Part 1 Offenses, 2000-2008 

35000 6000 

30000 

Arrests 

Recorded Crime 

2000 

10000 

1000 5000 

5000 

Recorded Crime, Part 1 Offenses

Arrests, Part 1 Offenses

4000 

3000 

0 0 

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 

ource: Mesa Police Department, Crime Analysis Unit. 

15000 

20000 

25000 

S

Perceptions of Safety 

What about public perceptions and feelings of 

safety? Have these improved, too? A study by West 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table 3. Perceptions of Neighborhood Safety at Night in Mesa, 2002 Versus 2006 

Falcon/ 

Mesa Citywide Central Dobson Red Mountain Superstition 

Responses 2002 2006 2002 2006 2002 2006 2002 2006 2002 2006 

Very safe 38% 42% 29% 36% 29% 32% 40% 37% 49% 53% 

Somewhat safe 41% 41% 44% 43% 41% 45% 42% 47% 39% 33% 

Neither safe nor unsafe 7% 6% 5% 5% 7% 11% 7% 6% 6% 5% 

Not too safe 11% 8% 17% 11% 18% 9% 9% 7% 5% 6% 

Not safe at all 3% 3% 5% 5% 5% 3% 2% 3% 1% 3% 

Source: Mesa Police Department Survey Conducted by West Group Research, June 2002 and June 2006. 

Making Policing More Af fordable | 9 

Group Research commissioned by the Mesa 

Police Department showed that the proportion of 

residents in Mesa who felt “very safe” during the 

day was identical in 2002 and 2006, despite a 20

percent increase in police personnel in these years 

and a o ne-third reduction in the number of Part 

1 recorded crimes. The proportion of residents 

who reported that they felt “very safe” at night 

was marginally higher in 2006, as table 3 shows, 

although it is not clear whether the difference is 

statistically significant.14 More research would be 

required to understand the links between these 

perceptions, police practices and recorded crime, 

but it would appear from these data that residents’ 

sense of safety is shaped less by the visibility of 

police and levels of crime than by other factors. 

­

Figure 4. Response Times for Calls for Service, 1999-2008 

8 

7 

6 

Response TIme in Minutes

5 

4 

3 

2

1 

0 

00 01 

Source: Mesa Police Department, Crime Analysis Unit.

Priority 1 

Emergency 

99 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 

Response Times 

The final commonly measured indicator of police 

value examined is the amount of time it takes 

the department to respond to calls for service. 

Response times, which measure the duration of 

time between the dispatch of an officer and arrival 

on scene, are an imperfect proxy for customer 

satisfaction and police efficiency, but nearly all 

police departments in the United States treat 

this measure as an indicator of performance and 

service. In Mesa, the number of calls requiring 

an emergency response increased 26 percent 

between 1999 and 2008. Nevertheless, as figure 4 

below shows, response times for these calls were 

slightly shorter in 2008. Response times for other 

calls, including the most urgent (Priority 1) and 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

10 | New Perspectives in Policing 

less urgent calls (Priority 2 and 3) were only marginally higher in 2008. In short, despite growing 

demand and a higher priority attached to many 

calls, the department was able to provide prompt 

attention to needs considered urgent. 

Evaluating the Results 

How can a price be put on these results? Are they 

adequate, a sufficient return on the investment? 

Should response times have changed even more 

than they did? What about arrests and the reductions in reported crime? Should arrests have 

increased and reported crimes decreased even 

more? After all, in addition to hiring more staff, the 

department acquired new technology, improved 

training, and introduced more advanced and 

effective management systems such as Compstat, 

all of which are force multipliers and should have 

raised overall productive capacity. Did the results 

fall short of, meet or exceed the increase in the 

department’s capacity? Could the same results have 

been achieved by other means or at less expense? 

To answer these questions, a means is needed of 

weighing the accomplishments against the initial 

investment, a way of assessing the relative costs of 

policing as well as the opportunity costs. 

A standard is also needed by which to assign a value 

to the results, a means of creating a social price for 

the effects of policing. Does the public consider 

more rapid response times and a greater sense of 

safety at night sufficient to justify the additional 

investment in policing? Was the reduction in crime 

worth it to some, but not others? In some communities, after all, even modest reductions in crime may 

have exceptional value to residents and positive 

side effects, whereas in others the improvements 

might not matter much at all. To properly evaluate 

and judge these results, more needs to be known 

about the impacts of victimization and insecurity 

among particularly vulnerable groups in society, 

the experiences of policing among minorities, and 

many other qualitative dimensions of crime and justice that give meaning to the term “public safety.” In 

short, even if it were certain that the reduction of 

crime and improved sense of security in Mesa was 

directly attributable to the work of the police department, citizen feedback about the value of policing 

and a new system of metrics for gauging the results 

would still be needed. Measuring the bottom line 

in policing by reference to levels of recorded crime 

turns out to be only one step toward assigning a 

value to police performance.15 

The Price of Policing in Other Cities 

Mesa is not the only city in which the price of policing has risen substantially over the last decade. Most 

cities in the surrounding Phoenix valley spend a lot 

more money on policing today. As figure 5 shows, 

the neighboring cities of Chandler, Scottsdale, 

Tempe, and Phoenix all spend considerably more 

per resident on policing today than Mesa. These cities also have experienced faster rates of growth in 

spending per resident over the past decade. 

Not all midsized cities in the United States have 

increased police spending at these rates, however. 

Indeed, figure 6 shows substantial variation in 

spending patterns across 10 cities that provided 

police budget figures. Charlotte, N.C., for example, 

spends only a few dollars more per resident today 

than it did in 1997: the increase of 7 percent in 
 

per-resident policing costs in that city is lower 

than the rate of inflation. In Columbus, Ohio, 

Sacramento, Calif., and Virginia Beach, Va., 

spending increased by 45, 47, and 54 percent 

respectively over this period, marginally exceed

ing inflation. Long Beach, Calif., also experienced 

only modest growth in spending, although in 

2007 it spent more on policing per resident than 

many other midsized cities. Only in Austin, Texas, 

Kansas City, Mo., and Mesa has the increase in 

per-resident spending on policing far surpassed 

the rate of the inflation over the past decade. 

­

Why Worry About the Price of Policing? 

Because spending is not going up in all cities, there 

might be no reason to worry about the price of 

policing. After all, if some cities and departments 

can control costs, perhaps the forces driving up 

spending are not universal. For this reason, some 

observers insist that the rising price of policing is 

primarily a result of local politics, particularly the 

willingness of mayors and other elected officials 

to pay for it. An anonymous reviewer of an early 

draft of this paper suggested that “the real reason” 

labor costs are going up in Mesa is that “the city 

council voted to raise salaries.” True enough, but 

expenditure on policing has risen in the United 

States as a whole, and many police executives 

see signs of shifts in the industry of policing that 

implicate greater future increases in its cost. “The 

entire knowledge structure of policing is chang

ing,” says one chief. “So officers today have to have 

a wider array of skills and knowledge than before, 

and it costs more to train and retain them.” 

Figure 5. Per-Resident Expenditure on Policing, Six Cities in the Phoenix Area, 

1998-2007 

450

400

Gilbert

Chandler

Mesa

Tempe

Phoenix

Scottsdale

97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07

Per-Resident Policing Expenditure (in Dollars) 

350

300

250

200

150

100

50
 

0
 

Source: Police Departments, Gilbert, Chandler, Phoenix, Mesa, Scottsdale, and Tempe, Ariz. 

 

 

 

Figure 6. Police Spending per Resident in Eight Cities, 1997-2007 

450
 

400
 Spending in 1997 

350 

100
 

50
 

0
 

Long Beach, Sacramento, Mesa, Austin, Kansas City, Calif.* Calif. Ariz. Texas Mo. 

Columbus, Charlotte, Virgina Beach, Ohio N.C.* Va. 

Increase since 1997 

* Baseline year is 1998.
 

Source note: Responsible officials in each police department shared expenditure information with research 


staff at the Program in Criminal Justice, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. 
 Spending per Resident (in Dollars)

300 

250 

200 

150 

Making Policing More Af fordable | 11 

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12 | New Perspectives in Policing 

Making Policing More Affordable 

Concern about the costs of law enforcement is not 

new. More than a decade ago, several senior scholars warned that “the era of adding more police, 

answering more calls in less time, and buying new 

gadgetry is coming to an end.”16 The current fiscal 

crisis and its related serious budget cuts lend fresh 

importance to this concern, as do the changes in the 

nature of police work and the structure of communities. So how might police departments respond to 

this challenge? What is a responsible way to manage 

police spending and still provide quality services? 

Reducing Costs 

One obvious response to escalating police expenditure is to cut costs. Many police departments have 

become quite skilled at detecting and eliminating 

unwarranted or unnecessary expenses. The Los 

Angeles Police Department, for example, reduced 

overtime expenditure over the last three years 

without any increase in the number of reported 

crimes.17 Other departments have cut relative costs, 

too, by automating key operations and using billboard warnings and cameras and other surrogates 

for human labor that, at least in some cases, have 

been shown to produce equal or equivalent feelings of safety. Since 2007, when the Mesa Police 

Department partnered with Motorola to develop a 

Digital Six Sigma process-improvement team, several cost-cutting initiatives have been implemented, 

including ones that yielded a 40-percent reduction 

in booking cycle times, enhanced dispatching protocols for many low-priority calls, and introduced 

new property disposition procedures. In fiscal year 

2008-9, overtime hours fell 48.8 percent. These and 

other initiatives will save the city of Mesa several 

million dollars in the years to come. 

Although current cost-saving steps may be important in their own right, it is unlikely these reductions 

will be enough. An independent review of the Austin, 

Texas, Police Department in 2007, for example, estimated that, even if nearly 100 recommendations 

to help streamline business processes were fully 

implemented, the cost savings would amount to 4 

percent of the current annual budget, most of which 

would be wiped out by inflation. 

One way to reduce the relative costs of policing is 

to boost productivity. Although the central component in police production today remains the 

individual officer, whose skill sets and capacity are 

not infinitely expandable, productivity gains are 

both necessary and possible. As has been the case 

with the telecommunications industry and postal 

services, the evolution of technology, combined 

with demands for new types of services and tight 

budgetary constraints, will force the profession to 

evolve. It would be facile to assume that policing 

will somehow escape the economic and consumerdriven pressures that have forced other professions 

to recreate themselves. 

Since incremental improvements in productivity 

are unlikely to eliminate the cost pressures, police 

professionals must become more creative in reengineering the profession. One way to break away 

from the limitations imposed by the current business model of policing, in which the individual 

officer remains the most important unit of production, is to conceive of public safety rather than crime 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Making Policing More Af fordable | 13 

control as the central goal of police departments. 

By shifting the emphasis from crime control to 

public safety, professional re-engineering efforts 

can begin to explore alternative business models, 

new forms of organization and new components 

in the production process. Another way is to start 

eliminating redundancies in the criminal justice 

system, promoting the integration of policing with 

victim services, parole and probation in ways that 

might give birth to new and more broad-based 

problem-solving models in public safety. 

The central question for police leadership then 

should not be whether major changes will 

occur, but rather whether those changes will be 

prompted thoughtfully by police professionals or 

forced on the profession by external forces and 

driven by agendas less concerned with public 

safety and professional development. The former 

can lead to a professional renaissance where new, 

invigorating business models are developed, leading to major improvements in public safety. 

Managing Demand 

Another strategy is to better manage the demands 

for police services. Only a small and in some cities declining portion of police work is related to 

serious crime and the customary role of police 

agencies. In Austin, Texas, for example, despite 

declining reports of crime, there was an unexplained 10-percent increase in calls for service 

between 2004 and 2006.18 In Pittsburgh, the 

police department reported that fewer than 1,000 

of 324,000 calls for service in 2007 required the 

responding officer “to use some type of force to 

insure the safety of the public or of the officer,” 

suggesting that other agencies might more efficiently and effectively respond to many police 

calls.19 The installation of centralized systems 

for routing calls and alternative hotlines such as 

311 numbers is another sign that departments 

around the country today are pressed to manage 

public demand for services. One of the chief ways 

of doing so is to channel calls away from police 

officers and toward more appropriate city services. 

In Mesa, the total number of calls for service 

declined by about 18 percent in the past three 

years. New dispatching protocols that require the 

dispatch center to call back and confirm the need 

for police response with the reporting parties are 

now in place. Also, telephone problem-solving 

for calls unrelated to crime or traffic often eliminates the need for police response. Additionally, 

parties to low-level noninjury traffic collisions 

are directed to exchange insurance information 

telephonically, eliminating the need to dispatch 

a patrol unit. These and other strategies reduced 

calls without sacrificing public safety. 

Today, as the data in table 4 (page 14) show, only 

half of all calls in Mesa are handled by sworn 

police officers. Sworn officers respond to situations in which there is some potential for violence 

as well as considerable uncertainty about the 

behavior under suspicion. A third of the calls were 

handled by civilians, including reports of vehicle 

burglaries, unsecured buildings, accidents, loose 

dogs, stolen vehicles, traffic hazards, and residential burglaries no longer in progress. Another 

one-sixth of all calls were handled by a civilian 

and sworn officer together. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

14 | New Perspectives in Policing 

A closer review of the calls for service handled by 

sworn officers suggests there may be ways to further 

reduce the demand for “armed authority in living 

rooms.” About 11 percent of calls in Mesa required 

a response to a burglary alarm, an estimated 99 

percent of which turned out to be false. Another 6 

percent of calls involved complaints of “juveniles 

disturbing” the peace, a large portion of which, 

according to officer testimony, did not require 

an armed officer to resolve. A more sophisticated 

system for classifying calls currently labeled “suspicious activity” and “subjects disturbing” (which 

comprise, respectively, 9 and 15 percent of all calls 

responded to by sworn officers) might also help free 

up scarce resources and otherwise generate savings. 

Table 4. Calls for Service by Response Type, 2006-2008 

2006 

N

Calls attended by sworn officers 137,220 

2007 2008 

% 

50.0% 

% N % N

48.7% 130,334 48.8% 116,128 

Calls attended by civilians only 97,553 34.6% 91,670 34.3% 77,170 33.2% 

Calls attended by both 47,032 16.7% 45,148 16.9% 39,025 16.8% 

Total Calls* 281,805 100% 267,142 100% 232,323 100% 

* Excludes officer-initiated traffic stops. 

Source: Mesa Police Department, Crime Analysis Unit. 

Sharing and Shifting the Costs of Public 

Safety 

Yet another strategy is to shift, spread and share 

the costs of policing.20 Some police departments in 

large suburban areas might be able to shift some 

of the price of policing back onto the private sector. For example, police departments can reduce or 

eliminate the invisible subsidy some commercial 

enterprises receive when cheap business security 

and poor risk-management systems force police 

to respond to chronic employee theft. There may 

also be opportunities for redistributing the costs of 

policing among government agencies — for example, by inviting other law enforcement institutions 

to take over key operations, consolidating fire and 

other safety services, or getting other city departments such as parks, schools and hospitals to take 

direct responsibility for some aspects of security 

and crime prevention. In the case of some narcotics 

offenses or crimes shaped by addiction, more effective deployment of public health professionals and 

medical services might preempt the involvement of 

more police work. 

Revaluing Policing 

Another response to the problem of rising costs 

of policing is to assign values to aspects of police 

work that are poorly measured or not quantified as 

benefits. Attributes like quality of service, customer 

satisfaction, the professional competence and ethics of officers, and relative resource efficiency are 

important aspects of public service but currently are 

not assigned value in many measurement systems. 

Dignity in the treatment of offenders, discretion 

in the use of authority and circumspection in the 

use of force are also important public goods that 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Making Policing More Af fordable | 15 

contribute to justice and the welfare of society, 

although they do not commonly figure in the costbenefit ledger for policing. 

There may be other public benefits to good policing 

that current performance measurement systems 

do not capture or consider. For example, some 

of the most important benefits of good policing, 

such as diffusing social tension and preventing 

the escalation of interracial conflicts, are never 

measured. These and other virtues are what police 

executives speak about in academy graduation 

speeches and what some residents say constitute 

the most prized and powerful aspects of policing 

in large, multiethnic cities.21 But rarely are these 

aspects of policing part of the cost-benefit equation in the evaluation of police performance. 

Another strategy is to reappraise the known benefits of policing. Research on the diverse impacts 

of victimization, and especially revictimization, 

indicates that the value of preventing repeat 

crime may be greater to victims and society than 

previously recognized. Efforts to quantify the 

downstream and life-cycle impacts of crime on 

families, communities and economic development also suggest that police departments that 

reduce crime in the most vulnerable sectors of 

society may have hidden values.22 

A reappraisal of the values and benefits of policing 

along these lines is long overdue. Conventional 

measures of the main outputs and outcomes of 

policing, such as the Uniform Crime Reports, do 

not capture what police executives today think 

matters most. Nor do they always capture what citizens hope or expect of their police departments. 

More careful analyses of how police departments 

help reduce crime and a fuller assessment of the 

relative costs and benefits of policing to communities are needed to measure the value of policing 

to society and determine whether or not it is worth 

the investment. 

Re-engineering Policing 

An even more ambitious response to the rising 

costs of policing is to re-engineer the profession. 

In the United Kingdom, where total spending on 

the police has increased 21 percent in real terms 

since 1998 and the cost of pensions doubled, 

senior officials appear to have concluded that the 

profession must be remade.23 In 2008, the Chief 

Inspector of Her Majesty’s Constabulary concluded that the current size of the police force was 

“not sustainable.” Since 2006, the U.K.’s National 

Police Improvement Agency (NPIA) has sponsored a series of experiments in 10 police areas 

to “modernize the workforce.” Some pilot projects involved reorganizing business operations, 

diversifying the labor pool involved in policing, 

and dispatching civilians to safe and suspectless 

crime scenes.24 Initial reports from the NPIA suggest that some experiments have not only cut costs 

but also boosted performance (higher clearance 

rates) and increased public satisfaction with and 

confidence in the police.25 

In the United States, discussions about involving 

a more diverse labor force in policing have rarely 

moved beyond a debate about “civilianization,” 

which for the most part has been fiercely resisted 

by unions, chiefs and mayors. In 2007, for example, the city controller in Los Angeles ordered the 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

16 | New Perspectives in Policing 

police department to re-examine plans to expand 

the ranks of sworn officers and consider instead hiring civilians to perform many police duties.26 The 

proposal ran aground in the mayor’s office, which 

insisted on an increase in sworn officers and the 

subsidy of this growth through an increase in trash 

collection fees. “Uniforms have become political 

currency,” say some chiefs, and replacing sworn 

staff with civilian employees, say some mayors, 

has proved politically “impossible,” even amidst 

extreme fiscal crises. 

One reason civilianization has made little headway 

in the United States so far is that its principal justifications have been costs and efficiency. But what if 

the recruitment of more civilian employees and a 

more rational balance between civilian and sworn 

officers were driven by ambitions for more effective 

and responsive policing, not just savings? Might a 

more nimble and diverse labor force, full of crimescene specialists, social workers, victim advocates 

and crime-reduction experts be more effective at 

reducing crime than a conventional department? 

Could a more modern array of public safety experts 

compete favorably with a conventionally staffed 

police department? If so, in what kinds of surroundings would it work best? 

In the search for more effective models for delivering 

police services, one might consider how other professions have dealt with the pressures to lower costs 

and enhance services. In medicine, for instance, a 

combination of newly created paraprofessionals 

(physician assistants), and a focus on prevention 

and wellness have been added to the arsenal of conventional medicine that is now keeping populations 

healthier and increasing longevity. In the legal profession, reducing liability by managing risk has 

become the norm. Increasingly, private and government entities under the direction of attorneys and 

paraprofessional risk managers create mechanisms 

to modify behavior or redesign products to avoid 

liability. These efforts reduce organizational exposure to lawsuits and protect the general well-being.27 

In the field of fire services, substantial re-engineering 

efforts during the last 50 years have resulted in the 

development of new fire-retardant building materials. Communities have enacted stricter building 

codes that are vigorously guarded by fire officials 

to prevent structural fires. These strategies have 

almost completely revolutionized the battle against 

structural fires from one of firefighting to one of 

fire-preventing, saving untold numbers of lives and 

millions of dollars in averted losses. 

In policing, real-time crime centers, enhanced 

crime-mapping solutions and other innovative tools 

are reducing the amount of time it takes police to 

react to emerging crime problems. They have even 

incited speculation about “predictive policing,” an 

idea that could be particularly powerful if it is combined with or conceived of as crime prevention. 

After all, good policing should mostly be measured 

by the absence of crime and not by the effectiveness 

in suppressing it. Predictability tools, moreover, can 

be most valuable when they are attached to robust 

crime prevention models and used to help shepherd 

the social and environmental changes necessary to 

prevent criminal activity in the first place. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Making Policing More Af fordable | 17 

Of course, it may seem rash to talk about the reengineering of police departments in the United 

States. Spending on policing, after all, has not 

risen dramatically everywhere, and it has not 

risen as rapidly as health care costs. Police chiefs 

and academic researchers are only beginning, 

moreover, to measure what matters most to the 

health of communities. Scholars also are in the 

early stages of understanding the unequal distribution of crime and victimization in society and 

the kinds of safety such vulnerability demands. 

To develop greater value in policing, the changing nature of people’s needs for safety and justice 

must be studied. 

Policing is unlikely to become more affordable 

solely through more cost-effective delivery of the 

same set of services departments currently provide. Police departments today have to develop 

a new and different kind of bottom line, one that 

resonates with the communities most in need of 

safety and justice. The steps outlined here for managing that process — reducing costs, managing 

demand, revaluing policing and re-engineering 

operations — may not solve all of the emerging problems of affordability in policing. Surely 

there is no blueprint or universal formula for the 

re-engineering of police departments in a country with such a decentralized system for policing 

and public safety. But these four steps provide a 

framework for more deliberate experimentation 

within individual departments. They also create 

a framework around which researchers can help 

police executives study and learn more from their 

innovations in a time of tight budgets. 

Endnotes 

1. See Reaves, Brian A., and Matthew J. Hickman, 

Police Departments in Large Cities, 1990 -2000, 

Wash i ng ton, DC: U.S. Depa r t ment of Just ice, 

Bureau of Justice Statistics, May 2002. NCJRS, NCJ 

175703, http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/ 

pdlc00.pdf. 

2. For a report of the discussion of rising police costs at the 

National Academy of Public Administration, see Peirce, 

Neil, “In Epic Fiscal Storm, New Strategies Arise,” Denver 

Post, November 9, 2008. See also the report of the Center 

for Policy Initiatives in San Diego, Calif., “Revenues and 

Officer Retention,” Issue Brief, July 17, 2006, available 

at ht t p://w w w.on l i ne c pi .or g /a r t ic le php?l i s t= 

type&type=77. 

3. For Washington, D.C., see Klein, Alison, “Budget Cut 

Would Imperil Staffing, Police Chief Says,” Washington 

Post, May 8, 2008. For Los Angeles, see Kahn, Gabriel, “Top 

Cop in Los Angeles Says Cutting Crime Pays,” Wall Street 

Journal, November 29, 2008. 

4. See, for example, Maguire, Edward, “Measuring 

the Performance of Law Enforcement Agencies,” 

CALEA Update 83/84 (September 2003/Februar y 

2004), available at http://w w w.calea.org/online/ 

newsletter/no83/measurement.htm. For an earlier dis

cussion of what results police departments should track, 

see Brady, Thomas V., Measuring What Matters: Part Two: 

Developing Measures of What the Police Do, NIJ Research 

in Action, Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, 

National Institute of Justice, November 1997. NCJRS, NCJ 

167255. 

5. Spending on police overtime in Mesa rose 48 percent 

between 2004 and 2008, from $4.6 million to $6.9 million. 

6. Comments made at the Executive Sessions on Policing, 

Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 

June 2008. 

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18 | New Perspectives in Policing 

7. Ibid. 

8. See, for example, Marlow, Michael L., and Alden F. 

Shiers, “Do Law Enforcement Expenditures Crowd-Out 

Public Education Expenditures?” Applied Economics 31 (2) 

(February 1999): 255-266. 

9. Interview with Mesa City Manager, February 18, 2009. See 

also “Proposed Adjustments to the FY 08/09 Budget,” memorandum from the City Manager to the Mayor of Mesa, March 

20, 2008. 

10. For a discussion of the challenge of measuring value in 

policing and attempts to generate equivalents of a “bottom 

line,” see Moore, Mark H., David Thacher, Andrea Dodge, 

and Tobias Moore, Recognizing Value in Policing: The 

Challenge of Measuring Police Performance, Washington, 

DC: Police Executive Research Forum, 2002. 

11. Researchers and government officials in the United 

Kingdom concluded that it is impossible to attribute public 

safety improvements to police activity alone. In 2006, an 

internal report of the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit concluded that up to 80 percent of the reduction in recorded 

crime in England and Wales since 1997 was related to “other” 

factors, including new jobs and economic development. 

Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit, Policy Review: Crime, Justice, 

and Social Cohesion, London, Cabinet Office, 2006, p. 13. See 

also Solomon, Enver, Chris Eades, Richard Garside, and Max 

Rutherford, Ten Years of Criminal Justice Under Labour: An 

Independent Audit, London: Kings College, Centre for Crime 

and Justice Studies, 2007, http://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk. 

12. UCR Part 1 offenses include homicide, rape, robbery, 

aggravated assault, larceny, burglary and motor vehicle 

theft. For definitions and counting rules, see the FBI’s 

Uniform Crime Reports at: http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/ucr.htm. 

13. See, for example, Taylor, Ralph B., Philip W. Harris, Peter 

R. Jones, Doris Weiland, R. Marie Garcia, and Eric S. McCord, 

“Short Term Changes in Adult Arrest Rates Influence 

Later Short-Term Changes in Serious Male Delinquency 

Prevalence: A Time-Dependent Relationship,” Criminology 

47 (3) (August 2009): 657-697. 

14. This rate varied considerably by district — a low of 49 

percent in Dobson and a high of 74 percent in Superstition. 

A spatial analysis of reported crime rates and patrol patterns 

might help explain this variation. 

15. See Moore et al., Recognizing Value in Policing (see note 10). 

16. See Brady, Measuring What Matters, Part Two (see note 4). 

17. In 2008, the Valley Bureau of the Los Angeles Police 

Department reported a greater reduction in the number 

of UCR Part 1 crimes than the other three bureaus and at 

the same time achieved the greatest reduction in overtime 

hours. 

18. In 2007, there were 1,100 calls for service for each 1,000 

residents in Austin, roughly twice the rate in Mesa and 

nearly three times the rate in Seattle. Audit Report, “Public 

Safety Assessment: Police Operations,” Austin City Council, 

June 2008. 

19. See Pittsburgh Bureau of Police, “Annual Report, 2007,” 

available at http://www.city.pittsburgh.pa.us/police/ 

assets/07_Police_Annual_Report.pdf. 

20. Van Reenen, P., “The ‘Unpayable’ Police,” Policing 22 (2) 

(1999): 133-152, pp. 146-148, provides good examples of cost 

spreading, fee shifting and redistribution of expenditures 

on public safety in The Netherlands. 

21. In Los Angeles, Chief William Bratton frequently calls for 

closer attention to the “immeasurable” benefits of policing 

in divided communities. For an example of one such value, 

see Sullivan, Jerry, “A Twice-Told Tale of Black, Brown, and 

LAPD Blue,” Los Angeles Garment and Citizen, October 18, 

2008. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Making Policing More Af fordable | 19 

22. For an example of research on the impact of crime on 

housing markets, see Tita, George E., Tricia L. Petras, and 

Robert T. Greenbaum, “Crime and Residential Choice: A 

Neighborhood Level Analysis of the Impact of Crime on 

Housing Prices,” Journal of Quantitative Criminology 22 

(4) (December 2006): 299-317. For an example of recent 

efforts in the United Kingdom to quantify the costs of 

crime, see “The Economic and Social Costs of Crime Against 

Individuals and Households 2003/04,” Home Office Online 

Report 30/05. 

23. For a comprehensive analysis of spending on 

policing in the United Kingdom, see Mills, Helen, 

A rianna Silvestri, and Roger Grimshaw, Police 

Expenditure, 1999-2009, London: Kings College, 

Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, May 2010, 

available at http://w w w.crimeandjustice.org.uk/ 

prpolicespendingbriefing.html. 

24. See Flanagan, Sir Ronnie, “The Rev iew of 

Policing: Final Report,” February 2008, available at 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/07-02­

08flanagan-final-report.pdf. For early news coverage of 

the report, see Ford, Richard, “Thin Blue Line Is About 

to Get Even Thinner as Numbers Are Cut,” The Times 

(London), February 8, 2008. See also Loveday, Barry, and 

Jonathan McCrory (authors) and Gavin Lockhart (ed.), 

Footing the Bill: Reforming the Police Service, London, 

Policy Exchange, 2007, p. 15, available at http://www. 

policyexchange.org.uk. 

25. “Workforce modernization” is a response to not only 

problems of cost but also the increasing volume of lowlevel crime (to which police officers may not be the right 

response), the increasing complexity of crime (ditto), and 

growing public concerns about the preservation and limitation of the use of force and surveillance to solve social 

problems. 

26. See the report by Arroyo Associates, “Review of 

Increased Civilianization of the Police Department,” 

March 19, 2008. 

27. See, for example, Sparrow, Malcolm, The Nature 

of Harms, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 

2008. 

About the Authors 

George Gascón is Chief of the San Francisco City 

Police Department. From December 2002 to 

August 2006 he was Assistant Chief of Police in 

Los Angeles, and from August 2006 to August 2009 

he was Chief of Police for the city of Mesa, Ariz. 

Todd Foglesong is a Senior Research Associate 

at the Program in Criminal Justice Policy and 

Management at the Harvard Kennedy School of 

Government. 

Acknowledgments 

The authors would like to thank Darrel Stephens, 

Chris Burbank, an anonymous reviewer and 

many members of the Executive Session on 

Policing at the Harvard Kennedy School for 

thoughtful comments on an earlier draft of this 

paper and for permission to share some of their 

insights. The authors would also like to thank the 

city manager of Mesa, Ariz., Chris Brady; the city 

manager of West Valley, Utah, Wayne Pile; and 

Austin, Texas, Police Chief Art Acevedo for their 

help compiling information about police expenditures. The authors are grateful to Pete Garza and 

Baillie Aaron for research assistance. 
U.S. Department of Justice 

Office of Justice Programs presorted standard 

National Institute of Justice postage & fees paid 

Washington, DC 20531 doJ/niJ 

Official Business permit no. g –91 

Penalty for Private Use $300 

*NCJ~231096*

Members of the Executive Session on Policing and Public Safety 

Chief Anthony Batts, Oakland Police 

Department 

Professor David Bayley, Distinguished 

Professor, School of Criminal Justice, 

State University of New York at Albany 

Dr. Anthony Braga, Senior Research 

Associate, Lecturer in Public Policy, 

Program in Criminal Justice Policy and 

Management, Kennedy School of 

Government, Harvard University 

Chief William J. Bratton, Los Angeles 

Police Department 

Chief Ella Bully-Cummings, Detroit Police 

Department (retired) 

Ms. Christine Cole (Facilitator), Executive 

Director, Program in Criminal Justice Policy 

and Management, Kennedy School of 

Government, Harvard University 

Commissioner Edward Davis, Boston 

Police Department 

Chief Ronald Davis, East Palo Alto 

Police Department 

Chief Edward Flynn, Milwaukee 

Police Department 

Colonel Rick Fuentes, Superintendent, 

New Jersey State Police 

Chief George Gascón, San Francisco 

Police Department 

Mr. Gil Kerlikowske, Director, Office of 

National Drug Control Policy 

Chief Cathy Lanier, Washington D.C. 

Metropolitan Police Department 

Ms. Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, Visiting 

Scholar, New York University 

Professor Tracey Meares, Walton Hale 

Hamilton Professor of Law, Yale Law School 

Chief Constable Peter Neyroud, Chief 

Executive, National Policing Improvement 

Agency (UK) 

Christine Nixon, Chair, Victorian Bushfire 

Reconstruction & Recovery Authority 

(Australia) 

Chief Richard Pennington, Atlanta Police 

Department 

Mayor Jerry Sanders, City of San Diego 

Professor David Sklansky, Professor of 

Law, Faculty Co-Chair of the Berkeley Center 

for Criminal Justice, University of California, 

Berkeley, School of Law 

Mr. Sean Smoot, Director and Chief Legal 

Counsel, Police Benevolent & Protective 

Association of Illinois 

Professor Malcolm Sparrow, Professor of 

Practice of Public Management, Kennedy 

School of Government, Harvard University 

Chief Darrel Stephens, CharlotteMecklenburg Police Department (retired) 

Professor Christopher Stone, Guggenheim 

Professor of the Practice of Criminal Justice, 

Kennedy School of Government, Harvard 

University 

Mr. Jeremy Travis, President, John Jay 

College of Criminal Justice 

Mr. Rick VanHouten, President, Fort Worth 

Police Association 

Professor David Weisburd, Walter E. Meyer 

Professor of Law and Criminal Justice, 

Director, Institute of Criminology, Faculty 

of Law, The Hebrew University and 

Distinguished Professor, Department of 

Criminology, Law, and Society, George Mason 

University 

Dr. Chuck Wexler, Executive Director, 

Police Executive Research Forum 

Learn more about the Executive Session at: 

NIJ’s website: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/topics/law-enforcement/executive-sessions/welcome.htm 

Harvard’s website: http://www.hks.harvard.edu/criminaljustice/executive_sessions/policing.htm 

NCJ 231096