Police staffing has an effect on gun crimes (duh!). But how much? In short, the effect is robust, though other factors matter. Take-aways Low-end moderate correlation between sworn duty officer headcounts and lower gun homicide rates. Effect heavily skewed to major metro cities. The ratio of detectives to patrol officers had a lesser correlation but still a strong effect. Cops, Gangs and Guns In our groundbreaking Top 15 Murder Counties study, We noticed a statistically significant correlation between total police staffing and gun homicide rates. But that was a simple measure of the total staffing of an an aggregate of several police agencies and we know that there are other variables. In particular, cities that have low homicide clearance rates tend to have exaggerated homicide rates. This would indicate that the number of detectives might have an effect. And we also know from the Ferguson effect studies that the number … Continue reading →