POLICINGShifting Policing Responsibilities from City to County Doesn't Affect Crime Levels

Disbanding city police departments and shifting law enforcement responsibilities to county governments appears to have no affect on overall crime rates and leads to fewer police-related deaths, according to new Rice University research. But the same study indicates those communities may be less likely to report their crime statistics to the FBI.

“Should Cities Disband their Police Departments?” appears in a recent edition of the Journal for Urban Economics.

Author Richard Boylan, a professor of economics at Rice, identified 521 cities with populations between 1,000 and 200,000 in 2002 that disbanded their police departments between 1972 and 2019. He compared their crime data, police-related deaths, traffic fatalities and spending on law enforcement with that of comparable cities that kept their police departments intact.

Disbanding Leads to Fewer Police-Related Deaths, but Less Transparency
Disbanding city police departments and shifting law enforcement responsibilities to county governments appears to have no affect on overall crime rates and leads to fewer police-related deaths, according to new Rice University research. But the same study indicates those communities may be less likely to report their crime statistics to the FBI.

“Should Cities Disband their Police Departments?” appears in a recent edition of the Journal for Urban Economics.

Author Richard Boylan, a professor of economics at Rice, identified 521 cities with populations between 1,000 and 200,000 in 2002 that disbanded their police departments between 1972 and 2019. He compared their crime data, police-related deaths, traffic fatalities and spending on law enforcement with that of comparable cities that kept their police departments intact.