Does an increased presence of an armed police force a in particular area increase or decrease crime?

Question

I have read some research in the course of my studies that seems to indicate that an increased armed presence actually increases violence and/or crime in the area in which it was implemented. If that is so, why are continuing with a method of crime control that has been proven ineffective? Am I missing something?

Answer 1

Maybe the suburbs....

but where crime actually occurs, an increased police prescence cuts down on crime dramatically.

Let's put it this way...in a normal day on my street there are prositutes, drug dealers, all sorts of fights, people openly brandishing illegal guns....but the second a cop car shows up to question someone across the street, all of that dissapears...

If there has been a couple shootings or increased problems, and on the rare occasions where they have enough manpower to flood my street with cops...they are the rare moments where I can sleep at night without hearing gunshots and fighting.

The problem with research and professors in a nice classroom teaching it is that...they don't actually KNOW what's going on and how many other things go into this kind of data.

They already have an idea or a theory and are just using the data to reinforce those ideas.  

Answer 2

It's hard to say whether increased police presence makes a change in actual amount of crime in an area, but, increased police presence does generally raise crime statistics because more charges are laid.  

Answer 3

Many years ago an experiment was done in Kansas City. The city was divided into 3 areas.

In the first area nothing was changed.

The second area was saturated with cops.

The third area was almost cop-free. They did no routine patrol, they went in to answer calls and then left immediately.

The experiment found no change in crime rates in any of the 3 areas.

More recently, we have learned that proactive policing (as opposed to regular reactive patrol) can reduce crime rates temporarily.

When the dirtbags are constantly stopped and "hassled" by the cops they tend to leave the area. Unfortunately, they don't stop being scum, they just move to another area to do it.

What DOES reduce crime is armed citizens. There is no happy ending like that of a scumbag being killed by his intended victim. And that doesn't even include the added benefits of improving the gene pool and making life that much better for the entire neighborhood.  

Answer 4

No, thats incorrect.

The reason your studies show an increased crime rate in areas with more police and armed forces is that with a higher police rate, there will be a higher arrest rate, which would equate to a higher rate to crime in your research.

The crime still goes on in the areas with less police, it just doesn't get caught near as much.

Answer 5

If that is so, then why do people drive more lawfully when they see a patrol car parked on the side of the road?  Why do rapes, dope deals, murders, burlglaries, break ins ... bla .. bla ... bla ... happen behind a shroud of secrecy and or under the cover of darkness?  

Answer 6

I believe the more police presence in a high crime area the better. I find it hard to believe that it would increase the crime rate. Without law enforcement in major cities would be complete chaos. Many agencies have a COPS (community policing program). They have been proven to reduce crime rate.