© 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © Institute of Econom.docx

© 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © Institute of
Economic Affairs 2007. Published by Blackwell Publishing,
Oxford
Policing a
liberal society
Blackwell Publishing Ltd
P O L I C I N G A L I B E R A L
S O C I E T Y
John Blundell
Better policing can only come by devolving accountability and
responsibility.
This, combined with decentralisation and privatisation where
possible, will
create an environment where innovation flourishes and good
practice is
copied. There are many lessons from the USA which could
usefully be adopted

by the UK.
Introduction
• ‘The average PC now spends 75 per cent of each
shift engaged in nonsense which has little to do
with catching criminals or helping victims,’
says an anonymous police officer who writes a
blog critical of the amount of time police waste
on red tape.
1
• Only one in 58 police officers is out on patrol at
any one time in some police force areas – that’s
about four per town of 90,000 people – yet
England and Wales has a record 143,000
officers.
2
• Only one in 40 in some forces is available to
respond to 999 calls.
3
• In 2004/05, the Metropolitan Police spent
£104.4 million on investigating robberies and

house burglaries and almost as much – £101.9
million – on non-incident-related paperwork.
4
• A man cautioned for being ‘in possession of an
egg with intent to throw’ and two children
arrested for being in possession of a toy pistol
are among trivial offences police officers have
pursued in a bid to meet government targets
for crime detection.
5
• London is now more dangerous than New
York. In the British capital 32% say they have
been victims of crime. In New York the figure is
23%. London is Europe’s most crime-ridden
city.
6
This grim snapshot of law and disorder in Britain in
2007 leads to the inescapable conclusion that the
police do not and cannot solve crime while they are
bound up in centrally imposed procedures that
remove them from the public they are employed to
protect. The approach of trying to improve policing
by imposing targets simply encourages the police to
aim for soft touches. Any new approach needs to be

based on the principles of responsibility and
accountability. Hand-wringing will get us nowhere;
we urgently need to identify and implement the best
methods for maintaining law and order in a free
society.
The growth of crime
Crime in the UK is growing. From time to time there
are downturns, but looking back over the past 50
years both crime and the fear of crime have
rocketed. Any reduction in crime or the fear of crime
in the last few decades has proven to be a short-term
cycle within a long-term worsening trend, not a
reversal of the trend itself. The undermining of
individual responsibility by the welfare and
education systems plays a part, but much of the
blame rests squarely with the police’s approach to
tackling wrongdoing. Law-breakers know there is a
good chance of getting away with it. The public
knows it too and has little confidence in the police.
So far, so depressing. But there are American
models for improving crime rates that could inspire
police policy in the UK and hope in its public. Key to
these innovations is the fact that American forces
are freer to try out new ideas, while the UK, in
common with many other countries, operates
national strategies that deny experimentation.
The control of the state over law enforcement is
a relatively recent development. The London
Metropolitan Police, the first modern force, was

created in 1829, and the development of organised,
publicly funded police forces was much slower in
other countries (Davies, 2002, pp. 152 –153). As in
many areas of public policy in Britain, there is still
little clear consensus on how best to police a free
society, or on the number of police we need. In the
meantime, crime figures and opinion polls speak
volumes. The most recent annual Home Office
figures showed a 3% rise in crime based on
interviews with members of the public and nearly
two-thirds of people thought that crime had
increased. Police-recorded crime, on the other hand,
ecaf_772.fm Page 4 Monday, November 12, 2007 5:40 PM
Oxford
iea
e c o n o m i c a f f a i r s d e c e m b e r 2 0 0 7 5
registered a 2% drop, making it clear that people do
not always go to the police when they have been a
victim of crime.
7

In a 2005 poll less than one in five
British people rated the police positively on
preventing or solving crime compared with nearly
half of Americans.
8
The public’s fears are well-founded. In 2004 the
number of violent crimes in this country topped a
million for the first time
9
and they continue to
rise – in 2006/07 they were 5% up on the previous
year.
10
Robberies of personal or business property in
England and Wales rocketed from 53,000 in 1992 to
121,000 by 2001/02. Of these robberies, 5,500 were
committed using weapons (Dennis
et al.

, 2003), and
five years later the number of armed burglaries had
reached record levels.
11
The total number of crimes
reported in 2002 was 5.8 million, compared with
1.7 million 30 years previously. All these figures
challenge the Home Office’s assertion that the
chance of being a crime victim is historically low.
Better policing
How do we best address citizens’ fears, bring crime
down, restore confidence in the police and work
towards a safer society consistent with liberal
principles?
Across the Atlantic, where big-city police chiefs
have more freedom, a number of highly effective
police chiefs have emerged over the past 15 years.
They have two things in common. Firstly, they are
willing to question received ideas and expose myths
about policing. Secondly, they are able to focus their
entire effort on preventing crime rather than
attempting to solve it long after the villains have
taken off. And their results show that it is not
necessary to recruit more officers in order to reduce
crime.
These ideas are not new. They echo London

Metropolitan Police founder Sir Robert Peel’s vision
for police conduct, outlined in his famous Nine
Principles of Policing. Peel believed that the police’s
primary goal should be to ‘prevent crime and
disorder’ and that the ‘test of police efficiency is the
absence of crime and disorder, not the visible
evidence of police action in dealing with it’.
12
It is
also easy to manipulate police success rates.
Reported crimes are a fraction of the actual total:
this means that the denominator of the clear-up rate
is artificially deflated. A 2004 survey showed that
38% of people do not report crimes, half of them
because they believe the police will do nothing,
13
and
a recent analysis of crime statistics suggested that
3 million crimes were omitted from official figures
because of a cap on offences against the same
person by the same perpetrator. For violent crimes,
this figure goes up to 83%.
14
But, in any case,

figures detailing crimes solved are no guide to
effectiveness – rather the opposite, as the basis of a
clear-up is failure to prevent a crime. The recent
trend for police to make arrests for trivial offences
in order to meet detection targets also distorts our
view of police prowess.
Exploding myths
Here are a number of key policing concepts that US
big-city police chiefs have shown to be deeply
flawed.
Myth 1: 999 policing is the best way to
fight crime
This is perhaps the most surprising myth of all. The
speedy response of emergency services to 999 calls
can work well for road accidents or fires when
firefighters or ambulance crews need to arrive
quickly. In the case of the police its usefulness is
questionable.
It’s easy to see why 999 became so attractive:
when it was introduced, it used modern technology
– radios and fast cars – in a bid to ‘keep up’ with
criminals. The message to the public is that the
police can be virtually omnipresent. The reality is
that officers race from scene to scene, while the
public feel frustrated at the lack of immediate results
and their necessarily rushed dealings with officers.

The average target response time is 12 minutes, so
any wrongdoers are usually long gone.
15
When every
local criminal knows the response times – and that
more than half the time the police do not meet that
target
16
– you might as well not bother.
Emergency-response policing does nothing to
allay fear of crime.
17
One study reveals that less than
3% of reports of serious crime lead to arrest resulting
from emergency response (Kelling and Coles, 1997).
It is perhaps the worst modern example of reactive,
‘warrior’ approach policing that fails to prevent
crime. Emergency response is crucial, but basing a
force’s whole strategy on it, as now, is not a viable
approach to law enforcement. It means officers have
already lost the battle; all they are doing is picking
up the pieces after a crime has taken place.

Another drawback is the overuse of 999. In
2004, 70% of all 999 calls were not emergencies.
To respond to this, the Home Office is piloting a
non-emergency hotline number – 101 – to alleviate
the strain on their resources.
18
It helps the public get
in touch with police or their local council over
non-urgent community safety issues, such as
vandalism, noise nuisance or anti-social behaviour.
Scottish forces have adopted a prioritisation system
for 999 calls in an attempt to improve their response
time to real emergencies.
19
Myth 2: private burglar alarms save
police time
In fact, responding to false private sector alarms is
an enormous waste of police time. Once an alarm is

Oxford
6 p o l i c i n g a l i b e r a l s o c i e t y
activated the call goes to a distant call centre. An
operator there then phones the household and, if
nobody responds with the correct password, officers
are immediately called. Usually, the alarm will cause
any burglars to flee before police arrive. Thus, the
burglar alarm has done its job and the police time
devoted to responding to the alarm is wasted.
Figures from Los Angeles provide a lesson in just
how many police man-hours burglar alarms actually
waste. As much as 15% of police patrol time is lost
responding to false call-outs to alarms, and the
chances of apprehending anyone are estimated at
close to zero. The Los Angeles Police Department
(LAPD) responds to about 136,000 alarms a year
and 90% of them are false.
20
To correct this, the
force decided to ignore most private residential and
business burglar alarms unless a third party – for
example, a homeowner or neighbour – could verify
that the alarm was valid.
Thames Valley officers have adopted a similar
policy, based on guidelines drawn up by the

Association of Chief Police Officers. If the force
receives three false alarms from the same source in a
year, it will not respond to further calls until the
system is upgraded. It now also refuses to send out
officers to investigate house alarms unless someone
is on the scene to indicate that a crime is being
committed.
21
Myth 3: police cars on random patrol are a
valuable deterrent
Urban areas are often sprawling, and for years police
authorities have argued that cars are the best way to
cover the most ground, make arrests and provide a
viable, visible deterrent. A US experiment, however,
proves the opposite. As far back as 1972, the Kansas
City, Missouri, police department gave one area of
the city the standard amount of car presence, and
doubled – sometimes even tripled – it in another,
while the third had almost none. The results sent
shock waves through police and criminological
circles: the crime levels in the three areas remained
almost identical (see Sparrow
et al.
, 1990). Random
police patrols do nothing to make the streets safer,
reassure the public, gather information or improve

trust between community and the authorities.
Rather, cars are cocoons – they prevent the police
from interacting with the public.
Myth 4: hiring more police reduces crime
Most people accept in good faith that hiring more
officers results in a safer public environment. If
there were no police, then crime would go up. Above
a certain number, however, the overall impact on
crime is negligible (Skolnick and Bayley, 1986). As
Skolnick and Bayley explain, ‘Variations in crime
and clearance rates are best predicted by social
conditions such as income, unemployment,
population, income distribution, and social
heterogeneity. We have learned that you can’t
simply throw money at law enforcement and expect
proportionate results’.
22
Alcohol consumption also
plays a part: the five countries to top the table for
the highest levels of crime in Europe – Ireland,
Britain, Estonia, Holland and Denmark – all have a
hard-drinking culture.
23

Yet hiring more and more
police officers has become the enduring quick fix of
law enforcement. Politicians endorse it to court
public favour; they are seen to be committed to the
‘war on crime’. In turn, senior police and their
officers can be guaranteed to line up behind any
demands for extra resources. The need, however,
is for better strategies for approaching crime
(Sparrow
et al.
, 1990, p. 14).
Myth 5: the police fight crime
Both the police and the public cherish this
assumption. Thanks to popular culture from
Dick
Tracy
to
Dirty Harry
to

NYPD Blue
, police forces
enjoy a public perception that is as far from reality
as Clint Eastwood is from PC Plod. Few police
officers have the chance to make high-profile arrests
or get into shoot-outs. Officers rarely encounter
directly the crimes that scare us most, notably
murder and rape (Skolnick and Bayley, 1986, p. 4).
Most importantly, arrest is rarely the result of
Sherlock Holmes-style deduction, with policemen
working forward from a set of clues to a suspect, the
identity of whom is always a surprise. In 99% of
cases police make an arrest when a friend or relative
tells them who committed the crime.
24
They then
work backwards, usually to a known villain. Most
police work is routine or involves administering
emergency assistance.
The idea that police are engaged in a war against
criminals allows the public somehow to relieve itself
of its own duty in preventing criminal activity. It
also enables police officers to adopt an ‘us versus the
bad guys’ approach to their job which in turn sees
the ordinary citizen as removed from the process,
or even as slowing them down.
This attitude can be traced back to O. W.

Wilson, the pre-eminent police theorist of the
twentieth century. Wilson and his peers believed
that policing should shift its focus from prevention
to criminal apprehension. They were responsible
for moving policing away from its earlier,
community-driven vision, adopting a more
militaristic approach. A consequence of this
so-called ‘reform’ model was that police officers had
less and less contact with the public and forces
became more bureaucratic (Kelling and Coles, 1997).
Wilson’s ‘scientific’ approach to police work
gained popularity all over the world. Rapid response
became more and more important until it was the
standard practice. Clear divisions of rank and
command became the norm. Street officers were
Oxford
iea
seen as being similar to line workers in a factory.
They were trusted with the simple, residual work,

and could be changed or moved around to another
part of the ‘factory’ whenever it suited command.
25
Parallels can be drawn with the work of Frederick
Taylor and his scientific models of management in
industry. Just as many in industry have turned their
backs on Taylor in recent decades, so we shall see
below that the more successful police forces are now
turning away from Wilson.
26
Successful ways of preventing crime
Despite the long-standing influence of Wilson’s
ideas, and some criminologists’ assertion that crime
is a social problem and therefore unassailable by
officers, there has been real and practical progress
made in policing in recent years in the USA. Chiefs
and commissioners have dramatically reduced crime
rates and, as a result, reinvigorated cities and rebuilt
the public’s trust in their officers. Not surprisingly,
their methods owed little to ‘scientific’ policing or
criminological trends.
Getting out and about

Ed Davis achieved a 70% drop in crime in the late
1990s as head of the Lowell, Massachusetts, Police
Department thanks to three major initiatives.
27
Firstly, he decentralised his police force, opening
small and highly visible police shops on city main
streets, rather than having one massive and
imposing police building. Secondly, he gave his
officers control over their own ‘turf ’: officers were
regularly assigned to the same areas and were
expected to take responsibility for them. This is in
stark contrast to many British police forces that
rotate officers from area to area, depriving them of
any chance of building rapport with local citizens or
even understanding the layout of the streets. Davis
took officers out of their cars and put them on the
streets on foot and on cycles – solo. He reports that
the amount of low-grade but vital intelligence
coming into his department exploded. Finally, he
committed his officers to being preventive rather
than reactive. Lowell’s officers were taught not only
to see crime but also the conditions that allow it to
flourish.
28
He explains:

‘Problem solving is the process we teach line-level
police officers to engage in when adopting the
community policing policy. It teaches them to be
observant of crime but also to look for those
conditions that lead to criminal activity. Disorder is
their main focus. Graffiti, obstreperous youth,
abandoned cars, family dysfunction all fall into this
category. We teach our officers to employ the SARA
method that is familiar to many professions,
especially social service agencies. Scanning, Analysis,
Responding and Assessing the response are the
methods that our police use in determining the best
way to deal with the issues that confront them. It is a
very powerful model that gets the officers out of the
mindset of arrest and prosecution. Prevention is key
to this process. It also empowers officers to use city
services, for instance, giving them official blessing to
go across boundaries that existed before.’
29
Devil in the detail
William Bratton is head of the Los Angeles Police
Department. He previously came to international
renown as the commissioner of the New York Police
Department (NYPD), where, during his 27-month
tenure, felony went down by almost 40% and
murder by 50%. Bratton, along with former mayor
Rudolph Giuliani, is largely credited with restoring
New York’s reputation as a top-class world city.

Bratton taught his officers to home-in on the little
things, from ‘squeegee merchants’ to fare evasion,
from vandalism to graffiti, believing that it was these
petty, so-called victimless crimes which encouraged
larger crime in the long run. This radical policy was
variously known as ‘Broken Windows’, ‘Zero
Tolerance’ and ‘Community Policing’. Bratton also
dismantled the old-boys’-club approach to
promotion and instead rewarded hard work, talent
and creativity (Bratton with Knobler, 1998).
30
His CompStat system was an equally famous
innovation. Bratton held twice-weekly meetings
with precinct commanders and other key staff built
around computer-collected crime statistics. These
meetings became instrumental in New York’s
transformation. Many high-ranking officials had
never previously been called on to discuss or defend
in public their records and their tactics. The flip side
was that these same commanders and their officers
were being allowed to follow their own discretion
and professional instincts. Police commanders were
being trusted with more and more responsibility for
their areas, and they were expected to produce
results – both in terms of crime prevention on the
streets and strategies that could be shared with
peers (ibid., pp. 223 – 229). This management
model, which also included the assignment of
permanent turfs or beats, is similar in concept to
giving property rights in the private sector and then
expecting a return.

No nonsense
The first black police chief in Charleston, South
Carolina, Reuben M. Greenberg, became a media
regular thanks to his straightforward, down-to-earth
approach to crime and punishment. Greenberg
relied on simple principles such as consistent police
presence, respect for the community, and a
preventive approach to criminal activity. His tactics
helped turn around the city.
Oxford
Greenberg did not believe that arrest is the key
to lowering crime rates. For example, by simply
reducing motorcycle parking and cleaning up a
diner favoured by bikers in Charleston, he was able
to remove the threat of a Hell’s Angels gang moving
in. Greenberg succeeded in defusing a potential
criminal situation without verbal confrontation or
physical violence (Greenberg, 1989, pp. 106 –107).

Graduate opportunities
When, 15 years ago, Chief T. Bowman of Arlington,
Texas, announced that every officer had to have a
full four-year university degree, critics told him that
women and ethnic minorities would be hard hit.
Interestingly, Chief Bowman is black and has a PhD.
He stuck to his guns, even encouraging Master’s
degrees. Now, with women making up more than
17% of its officers, Arlington is above the national
average of 12% of female officers. The police
department’s sworn staff is more than 30% ethnic-
minority, making it one of the most integrated
departments in the USA.
31
Hand-in-hand with this went an emphasis on
moving decision-making downwards and giving
officers effective decentralised ‘property rights’.
Bowman broke his department into four separate
geographical areas, giving teams 24-hours-a-day,
365-days-a-year responsibility for their allocated
area. Lower-ranked but highly qualified officers are
making decisions normally made higher up, and he
is attracting a calibre of young graduates who would
be unlikely to join a department with lower
educational standards. Indeed, national agencies
regularly raid his department for staff. While crime
fell in Arlington (by 4% in 2002), it rose in
neighbouring Dallas (up 1% in 2002) and soared in
Fort Worth (increasing 11% in the same year).

32
Applying these lessons to the UK
These four examples have a number of common
characteristics:
1. They show leaders who trusted the
professionalism of their officers, giving them
more and more discretion as to how they
handled crime in their area.
2. The officers were expected to foster better
relations with the community and move away
from the idea that they were the ones tackling
crime and that citizens were merely potential
victims.
3. Crucially, all these forces, not just Bratton’s,
were committed to ‘zero-tolerance’ policing.
Police were trained to prevent and address all
crime in their areas, not merely serious
offences. This is the opposite of, say, the
London approach to policing, where major
crime is the focus and smaller crime is expected
to sort itself out (Dennis
et al.

, 2003, pp. 7, 16).
The US experience teaches that ‘sweating the
small stuff ’ seriously impacts on the big issues.
What these officers and their men accomplished is
not a distant pipe-dream. Our own police, both in
the capital and elsewhere, can learn from and take
advantage of their successes, and they can begin
now by introducing the following simple measures.
Increase the police presence sensed by
the public
This does not have to mean hiring more officers. It
could just as easily mean relying less on squad cars
and putting officers in regular contact with the
people, either on foot or on bikes. Officers should be
given the chance to work in areas for longer periods
of time, establishing a solid rapport with the local
community. This type of police presence is far more
immediate, personal and helpful. It is also a far
greater deterrent to crime than anything else.
The author’s own experience in Westminster
shows how detached many Metropolitan Police
officers are from the areas they patrol. When one
day he asked two policemen on his local beat
whether there were any demonstrations planned
around Parliament that day, one of them replied:
‘Dunno, mate, we’re from Catford.’
Foot patrols raise officer morale (Skolnick and
Bayley, 1986, p. 216). Davis in particular recognised
the importance of this and, early in his command,

made the Chief of Patrol his official number two,
sending a signal to his whole force that patrol is a
route to the top and not some chore you do for three
years before moving on to more prestigious work.
Indeed, many officers prefer the beat to being in a
squad car or inside, saying it allows them to feel
better about their jobs while feeling closer to the
community.
33
Officers must patrol alone wherever possible
A US study has proved that solo car patrols are no
more dangerous than working in pairs, possibly
because police are more inclined to take risks when
partnered. Police departments that have adopted
this measure have improved their response time to
officers who need assistance (ibid., p. 101). In many
areas in the UK, however, dangers to police are
negligible, even if there is anti-social and low-grade
criminal behaviour.
Foot and bike officers can be sent on solo patrols
too. The immediate benefit is that these officers,
without the temptation of a fellow officer to talk to,
now talk to the public. In central London officers are
often seen walking in pairs, or standing in groups
deep in conversation. This gives rise to three
problems: they are looking at each other, not at their
surroundings; they are not interacting with the

Oxford
iea
public; and the effective police presence is halved
(at best). In London, concerned local residents, who
have seen crime rocket in their areas, have turned
to private security guards who work alone and
interact with the public.
34, 35
Solo patrols establish communication and trust,
and the public not only feels more comfortable with
a consistent and visible police presence, but also is
more inclined to share information and tips that can
lead to crime prevention and arrests.
Eliminate as much paperwork and court time
as possible

Home Office figures show that officers spend only
about 14% of their time on the street and since 2004
police have had to fill in a foot-long, 40-question
form every time they stop and question someone.
36
If all we did was double that 14% and put officers
who now patrol in pairs out on the streets solo,
we would achieve an instant a four-fold increase in
police presence. But who would do the paperwork?
Why not civilians? This is a solution attempted by
some US police departments. It is controversial
because many officers fear that volunteer or lower-
paid civilian assistance may eventually lead to lower
police salaries. But it has proven extremely effective.
In Houston, Texas, civilians help with police admin
work by taking on smaller tasks such as traffic
accident follow-up reports, freeing up officers’ time.
Also key to this idea’s success is that many of these
civilians are insiders in their community, and can
be valuable sources of information and liaison
(ibid., pp. 217 – 220). Many police report a higher
level of job satisfaction since they can focus on the
parts of the job they thought they were signing up
to do. This policy allows officers to be officers –
an idea surely behind the recent recruitment drive
for special/volunteer constables in the Metropolitan
Police. Indeed, such has been the success of Sir
Ian Blair’s initiative that, after proper checks and
training, some 500 volunteers reopened 17
previously closed London police stations. And

this quickly growing phenomenon of volunteer
civilians helping carry the load is not limited to
London or to manning desks. Volunteer
accountants have also reportedly been recruited
to help the Fraud Squad.
37
Open one-stop cop shops
Police and retailers are keen to set up short-term
jails in shopping centres and sporting venues to deal
with thieves, anti-social behaviour or football
hooligans. Discussions are already under way on
building a mini-prison inside Selfridges department
store in London’s Oxford Street. These units would
be manned by police and used to process those
suspected of high-volume crimes such as shoplifting
without having to travel to a police station. They
would enable officers to get back on the streets more
quickly after making an arrest.
38
Such a move shows
a refreshing commitment to police decentralisation
and re-establishing a visible police presence.
Admit failure

Police officers in Britain have to acknowledge fully
the failure of their past crime-reduction strategies.
Dealing with serious crime in the fragile hope that
smaller crime would drop naturally has not worked
(Dennis
et al.
, 2003, pp. 7 – 8). Conversely, the
results of so-called zero-tolerance policing speak for
themselves. Aggressive begging, graffiti and verbal
abuse are not serious crimes but they upset the
public and have been proven to lead to higher levels
of overall crime. When people see the little things
being allowed to slide, it is a natural progression
to more serious and violent wrongdoing. It
undermines trust in the social structure that
maintains order (Wilson and Kelling, 1983).
39
Adopting true zero tolerance will require more than
mere lip-service to ideas of ‘community policing’.
Conclusion: major institutional
change

Crime may be inevitable but it can be dramatically
reduced. Altering the approach of the British police
and their political masters is a long-term
commitment, but the precedent is there. In London
the Metropolitan Police has taken some positive
steps and the appointment of Paul F. Evans, former
Chief of the Boston Police Department, to head the
Home Office’s Police Standards Unit was a good
sign.
40
His strategies in Boston helped cut violent
crime by 34%, murder by 68% and burglary
by 40%.
Heads of police authorities must stop pushing
the more-money-and-more-officers agenda. Britain
can be a much safer place to live with the resources
available to its police now. What works is insightful
leadership, a willingness to trust the officer on the
street while holding commanders accountable, and
a commitment to involving the community in
preventing and detecting crime. It is all about
incentives, property rights and personal
accountability.
Change will come about only sporadically unless
there is major institutional change. Policing may
always take place in a ‘second-best’ environment as
far as liberal economists are concerned. So to
develop effective policing strategies we have to
develop the structures that, as far as possible, use
market-type incentives. Most liberal economists

share the view that services that have to be provided
by the state should be provided by the lowest level of
public authority possible. In the case of policing that
should be district or city councils or unitary
authorities under our current local government
Oxford
structures. If structures that provide even smaller
areas of meaningful local government can be
developed, so much the better.
Local authorities should have responsibility for
raising their own finance for the police, for setting
the pay and conditions of their police service
(including pension benefits) and for developing
their own policing strategies. In such an
environment innovation will be copied more
effectively and the local electorate will understand
exactly who is responsible for policing and cast their
votes accordingly. Parish councils could have the
option of levying supplementary policing charges in
return for extra policing – or have the option of
providing their own additional arrangements. There

will be straightforward competitive comparison of
crime reduction strategies, costs and success rates
between similar and adjacent areas. Of course, there
may be some forms of crime for which regional and
national police forces are necessary – for example,
kidnapping and terrorism. Just as there are
hypermarkets and corner shops, we need different
kinds of police forces to deal with different kinds of
crime. There should also be co-operation between
neighbouring forces – in a competitive environment,
where failure is punished and success rewarded,
co-operation pays.
Private policing should be a major part of the
solution too. Private firms are already providing a
significant proportion of security services. The
benefits of policing can often be confined within
the boundaries of particular estates or areas that
are privately owned or controlled by housing
associations. Gated communities could negotiate
with local authorities to provide some or all of their
own policing, in return for a reduction in local taxes.
Indeed, at the end of 2004, the Royal Institute of
Chartered Surveyors reported a ‘mushrooming’ in
the use of private security firms to police everything
from wealthy areas and gated communities to
council and social housing.
41
And in June 2005,
the private security industry estimated that 50
neighbourhoods in London and the South-East were
employing private patrols and that the number was

growing.
42
Alternatively, local authorities could provide
grants to housing associations or private estate
owners who provide their own policing (see
Johnston, 2004). And better development of
property rights would enable yet-to-be-envisaged
private solutions to policing. Governments will need
to rid themselves of the conceit that they can impose
the best methods of doing things.
Governments will have to accept ‘postcode
policing’. Policing methods will be better in some
areas than in others. But constructive innovation
and competitive pressure will ensure that the best
ideas prevail and those that fail will be consigned to
the dustbin, a far cry from the current situation.
Only radical reform of policing will ensure that the
police return to their proper role – that of effectively
preventing crime.
1. ‘A Policeman’s Lot is a Waste of Time’,
Daily Telegraph
,
20 July 2007.

2. ‘Just One in 58 Police is Patrolling the Streets’,
Sunday
Telegraph
, 17 March 2007.
3. ‘Only One in 40 Officers Free to Answer Calls’,
Daily
Telegraph
, 30 March 2007.
4. Ben Leapman,
Daily Telegraph
, 22 January 2006, at
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/
news/2006/01/22/npolice22.xml.
5. ‘Police “Pressured to Make Silly Arrests just to Meet
Targets” ’,
The Times
, 15 May 2007.
6. ‘Britain Near the Top of European Crime League, UN

Study Says’,
The Times
, 6 February 2007.
7. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/31bfef8c-361a-11dc-ad42-
0000779fd2ac.html.
8. http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/
index.asp?PID=605.
9. Bob Roberts, ‘Lawless UK’, www.mirror.co.uk,
22 July 2004.
10. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6906554.stm.
11. http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/
article2186579.ece.
12. This example of Peel’s Nine Principles was taken from
www.safe-nz.org.nz/Articles/peels.htm. An astonishing
and growing number of police department sites around
the world now feature Peel’s Nine Principles
prominently.
13. Hugh Dougherty, ‘Third of Crime Not Reported’,
Evening Standard
, 29 April 2004.
14. http://www.civitas.org.uk/pdf/CivitasReviewJun07.pdf.
15. See ‘Emergency Response Time Below Average’,

www.walthamforestguardian.co.uk, 23 February 2004.
16. http://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/news/topstories/
display.var.709208.0.police_response_times_target_
missed.php.
17. Ed Davis, former Superintendent of Police in Lowell,
Massachusetts, in a speech to the Institute of Economic
Affairs, 6 November 2001 (hereinafter, the Davis
speech). By 1999 Lowell had experienced the biggest
decrease in crime of any large-sized US city during the
1990s.
18. http://www.101.gov.uk/index.html.
19. Ian Johnston, ‘Police Plan to Put Most 999 Calls “On
Hold” ’, http://news.scotsman.com, 11 January 2004.
20. Mariel Garza, ‘Alarm Plan: Police May Quit Reacting’,
www.dailynews.com, 13 December 2002.
21. http://www.thamesvalley.police.uk/news_info/freedom/
policies_procedures/alarms.htm.
22. The authors base this argument on the work of Clark
and Heal (1979) and Morris and Heal (1981).
23. ‘Britain Tops Crime League for Break-ins and Assaults’,
Daily Telegraph
, 6 February 2007.
24. Davis speech.
25. Ibid., pp. 77, 80.

26. For a full discussion of ‘Taylorism’ and the new
challenge of market process management, see Cowen
and Parker (1997) and Parker and Stacey (1994).
27. Information about Davis’s success in cutting crime can
be found at http://www.iea.org.uk/record.jsp?type=
news&ID=107.
28. Davis speech.
29. Davis e-mail to the author, January 2004.
30. This text is also an excellent account of how politics (in
this case, Bratton’s difficult relationship with Rudolph
Giuliani) can derail police progress.
31. Arlington Police Department figures as at 16 August
2007, Public Information Request.
32. Based on a personal visit by the author to the Arlington,
Texas, Police Department in January 2003, for which he
thanks Chief T. Bowman.
33. Ty Klassen, ‘Beat Cops in West Broadway’, www.
westbroadway.mb.ca, August/September 2003.
34. Harriet Sergeant, ‘The Police Have Failed Us – So We’ve
Hired a 6ft 6in Security Guard’, www.telegraph.co.uk,
5 April 2004. The author’s experience of police foot
patrols in Westminster endorses this. They are often
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/0
1/22/npolice22.xml

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/31bfef8c-361a-11dc-ad42-
0000779fd2ac.html
http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=60
5
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6906554.stm
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article2186579.ece
http://www.civitas.org.uk/pdf/CivitasReviewJun07.pdf
http://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/news/topstories/display.var.
709208.0.police_response_times_target_missed.php
http://www.101.gov.uk/index.html
http://news.scotsman.com
http://www.thamesvalley.police.uk/news_info/freedom/policies_
procedures/alarms.htm
http://www.iea.org.uk/record.jsp?type=news&ID=107
www.mirror.co.uk
www.safe-nz.org.nz/Articles/peels.htm
www.walthamforestguardian.co.uk
www.dailynews.com
www.westbroadway.mb.ca
www.telegraph.co.uk
Oxford
iea
seen heads down, leaning towards each other, talking
about issues such as pensions and pay, holidays and

partners, or their superiors.
35. ‘I’m a NIMBY, Protect Me’,
The Times
, 29 May 2007
(http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/
article1850921.ece).
36. ‘Just One in 58 Police is Patrolling the Streets’,
Sunday
Telegraph
, 17 March 2007.
37. ‘Volunteer Spirit Gives Blue Lamps a Chance to Glow
Again’,
Daily Telegraph
, 29 November 2004. See http://
www.metpolicecareers.co.uk/default.asp?action=
article&ID=35.
38. ‘Police Want Tesco Jails’,
The Times

, 1 August 2007.
39. This now-famous article helped popularise the idea of
zero tolerance, or what is sometimes called ‘Broken
Window’ policing. It is based on the idea that a single
broken window in a neighbourhood can invite
further crime problems by creating an air of social
uncertainty and enforcing an idea of few active
authorities.
40. ‘Police Forces Face Shake-up’, http://news.bbc.co.uk,
9 September 2003.
41. ‘Private Security Firms Join Battle on the Streets’,
Daily
Telegraph
, 2 December 2004.
42. ‘Growth in Private Police Forces’, 3 June 2005 (http://
www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-19063721-details/
Growth+in+%27private+police+forces%27/
article.do;jsessionid=MPPFGxvbhBldBy2d43q2zt6cmBXJ
55Q5jRGwBPvFG2xyWzpytn3l!71957603!1407319226!
7001!-1).
References
Bratton, W. with P. Knobler (1998)

Turnaround
, New York:
Random House.
Clark, R. V. G. and K. H. Heal (1979) ‘Police Effectiveness in
Dealing with Crime: Some Current British Research’,
Police Journal
, January, pp. 24 – 41.
Cowen, T. and D. Parker (1997)
Markets in the Firm
, Hobart
Paper 134, London: Institute of Economic Affairs.
Davies, S. (2002) ‘The Private Provision of Police in the
Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries’, in D. T. Beito,
P. Gordon and A. Tabarrok (eds.)
The Voluntary City
,
Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

Dennis, N., G. Erdos, D. Robinson and G. L. Kelling (2003)
The Failure of Britain’s Police
, London: Civitas.
Greenberg, R. (1989)
Let’s Take Back Our Streets!
, Chicago,
IL: Contemporary Books.
Johnston, P. (2004) ‘Additions to the Bill’,
Search
, 41,
Summer, York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation, pp. 7 – 9.
Kelling, G. L. and C. M. Coles (1997)
Fixing Broken Windows:
Restoring Order and Reducing Crime in our Communities
,
New York: Touchstone.
Morris, P. and K. Heal (1981)

Crime Control and the Police:
A Review of Research
, Home Office Research Study
No. 67, London: HMSO.
Parker, D. and R. Stacey (1994)
Chaos, Management and
Economics
, Hobart Paper 125, London: Institute of
Economic Affairs.
Skolnick, J. H. and D. H. Bayley (1986)
The New Blue Line:
Police Innovation in Six American Cities
, New York: The
Free Press.
Sparrow, M. K., M. H. Moore and D. M. Kennedy (1990)
Beyond 9/11: A New Era for Policing
, New York: Basic

Books.
Wilson, J. Q. and G. L. Kelling (1983) ‘The Police and
Neighbourhood Safety’,
The Atlantic
, March, pp. 29 – 38.
John Blundell
is Director General and Ralph Harris
Fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs
( [email protected]).
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article1850921.
ece
http://www.metpolicecareers.co.uk/default.asp?action=article&I
D=35
http://news.bbc.co.uk
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-19063721-
details/Growth+in+%27private+police+forces%27/article.do;jse
ssionid=MPPFGxvbhBldBy2d43q2zt6cmBXJ55Q5jRGwBPvFG2
xyWzpytn3l!71957603!1407319226!7001!-1

© 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © Institute of Econom.docx

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Similar to © 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © Institute of Econom.docx

Similar to © 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © Institute of Econom.docx (16)

More from gerardkortney

More from gerardkortney (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

© 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © Institute of Econom.docx