There’s “no consistent association” between police funding and crime rates across the country, according to a published study by University of Toronto researchers.

  • bionicjoey
    513·
    10 months ago

    If the headline is to be believed, then completely abolishing the Toronto police would have 0 impact on crime rates in Toronto. To my mind, it seems impossible that that would be true.

    • karlhungus
      10·
      10 months ago

      It seems like you maybe thinking this is saying police do nothing, it isn’t.

      No consistent association means the data doesn’t back up higher or lower funding having an impact on crime. It doesn’t say anything about rates when the funding is zero or when funding is very high.

      I think it means can’t pay to reduce crime, or not pay and expect crime to go up.

      Testing for zero would be extremely difficult, because we only have one Toronto sized city in Canada.

      I’m guessing here but I suspect that there’s a significant number of places with zero police presence that have very little crime. And this article suggests that there are very well funded police presences where crime still happens.

      • bionicjoey
        110·
        10 months ago

        No consistent association means the data doesn’t back up higher or lower funding having an impact on crime. It doesn’t say anything about rates when the funding is zero or when funding is very high.

        Is “zero” not “lower”?

        • TotallyHuman
          4·
          10 months ago

          If there’s no zero in the dataset, then we don’t have any zero about data. It could be, for instance, that some police have a large effect, but that you hit diminishing returns incredibly quickly.

          • bionicjoey
            18·
            10 months ago

            That’s literally what I said elsewhere in this thread. People are putting words in my mouth all over this thread but literally all I was saying is that it’s impossible that the headline is true verbatim.

            • TotallyHuman
              2·
              10 months ago

              How so? The study showed no consistent association between funding and crime rates. That is true verbatim.

        • karlhungus
          3·
          10 months ago

          Skim the article, it’s 20 large municipality’s, nowhere is 0 mentioned

    • CanadaPlus@futurology.todayEnglish
      4·
      10 months ago

      I mean, the data is only about funding rates that actually exist. No law enforcement at all would be jumped on by organized crime (that’s called a power vacuum, and isn’t a thing in Canada), but apparently an especially light police presence is no different from a heavy one.

      What it most directly supports policy-wise is scaling down the local police a bit. The real work will still get done by whatever investigative teams.

    • Victor Villas
      3·
      10 months ago

      If the headline is to be believed, then completely abolishing the Toronto police would have 0 impact on crime rates in Toronto.

      Did you even try to read the study?

      data on municipal police service expenditures from 2010 to 2021 in 20 of the most populous urban municipalities in Canada

      In 2019, police services were the top operating expenditure in a majority of the municipalities. Real per capita spending on police services increased in 16 of 20 municipalities from 2010 to 2020. Marked differences are seen in spending between municipalities: in 2019, in 2020 dollars, Vancouver spent $495.84 per capita, whereas Quebec City spent $217.05 per capita.