NCJ Number
108766
Journal
Social Forces Volume: 65 Issue: 1 Dated: (September 1986) Pages: 163-176
Date Published
1986
Length
15 pages
Annotation
Two general explanations have been developed to account for variations in the level of resources available to urban police forces, one based on public choice theory and the other on theories of social conflict.
Abstract
Advocates of each explanation tend to neglect the other, and both ignore studies of budgetary politics that emphasize organizational constraints and incremental change. Using variables from the public choice and conflict perspectives, and a dynamic specification to represent the effects of organizational constraints, the authors estimate a model of the level of police resources in Detroit, Mich. While the public choice and conflict explanations received only modest support, the effects of organizational constraints were very large. (Publisher abstract)