More Money for Cops Produces More Misdemeanor Arrests: Study
Researchers analyzing 29 years of police spending in hundreds of U.S. cities finds that as the police budget increases and the size of the force grows, many more people are arrested for relatively minor offenses like loitering, trespassing, and drug possession.
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A new study released Thursday suggests that all the new police budget growth seen in most U.S. cities is correlated to an increase in misdemeanor arrests for crimes like loitering, trespassing, and drug possession, Slate reports. Researchers analyzed hundreds of U.S. cities and towns over a 29-year period, tracking how the local police departments spent money related to staffing and misdemeanor arrests.
“The trend was clear,” writes Brenden Beck, the lead author of the study published in The British Journal of Criminology. Critics say that rather than having officers dispatched into neighborhoods arresting many for low-level crimes, departments should shift to community policing methods. Beck says their study proves that wouldn’t work because it’s about “the amount of policing, not the type of policing, that influenced misdemeanor arrest rates.” Beck and his co-authors suggest elected officials use this as an opportunity to investigate innovative policing alternatives.
