Crime and the effectiveness of public order spending in Greece: Policy implications of some persistent findings

Increasing crime rates invariably result in calls for more police protection which requires the allocation of additional scarce resources to policing and public order. In an environment of fiscal pressures, the effectiveness of such public spending in deterring crime emerges as an important issue. This paper evaluates the effectiveness of public order spending on recorded crime in Greece. Results reported herein show that public order outlays do not have any crime reducing impact. The findings may tentatively be interpreted as either reflecting inefficient use of resources and/or that crime is driven by a cohort of other factors and hence it is unaffected by the allocation of resources to policing. Both interpretations have important policy implications both in terms of crime prevention policies as well as in terms of the operational efficiency and effectiveness of the agencies assigned with the task to thwart criminal activity.