COPS GRANTS AND CRIME REVISITED*
The authors would like to thank Tom Jessor, David Lilley, Bill Sabol, and Solomon Zhao for helpful thoughts and suggestions. An earlier version of this article was presented at the 2005 ASC Conference in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Abstract
Using 6 years of panel data, Zhao, Scheider, and Thurman (2002) found that funding from the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), reduced property and violent crime in large U.S. cities. We merged their COPS data with 11 years of panel data from a sample of 189 large cities, such that the period before the COPS program was covered. We also controlled for pre‐existing effects on crime of police spending. Finally, we performed various robustness checks and explored state‐specific effects of COPS spending. Our findings suggest that COPS spending had little to no effect on crime.
