More police, more crime?

Question

Across cities, the size of the police force is positively correlated with the number of reported crimes: cities with more officers report more crime.

Do more police cause more crime? List the explanations for the correlation, and say what would settle the question.

Accepted Answer

The correlation between police size X and reported crime Y has the same four canonical explanations any correlation does: 1. X causes Y. The naive reading: officers somehow generate crime. Implausible here, but note one real sub-mechanism, more police can raise reported crime by recording incidents that would otherwise go unlogged. That is a genuine causal path, though not the scary one. 2. Y causes X (reverse causation). Far more likely: high-crime cities hire more police in response to crime. The arrow runs from crime to hiring, not the other way. This is the leading explanation and the cla…

More police, more crime?

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