http://www.prisonworks.org/2006/08/europe_number_of_police.html
"It may seem pretty obvious that the more police one has, the less crime there will be. Well, to some of us it is also pretty obvious that more use of prison equates to less crime, but there is a vociferous body of prison reformers who disagree which demonstrates that nothing in the law and order debate can be taken for granted. I daresay there are individuals who will argue that to reduce crime, money spent on the police could be better spent on social services or community initiatives. Alan’s post (“America: Number of Police.”, Aug 9th 2006) presented the evidence from the USA in favour of increased policing levels as an effective way to combat crime. I couldn’t resist carrying out a similar analysis of my European data to see if Alan’s results would be confirmed by the data collected on this side of the Atlantic."
