Examining the merits of municipal police contracting
Abstract
The touted benefits of inter-governmental contracting are cost savings and simplicity when compared to shared service agreements. Some managers and public officials resist contracting given the assumption that there may be a drop-off in service quality. However, inter-governmental contracting introduces market forces which theoretically would improve performance while keeping costs per unit of output low (Boyne, 1998). This paperexamines municipal police contracting in the State of New Jersey, the purpose of which is to determine if there are statistically significant differences in non-violent crime rates among municipalities that maintain their own police force versus those that contract with neighboring municipalities for police services. Contracting costs are also explored. While summary statistics indicate lower non-violent crime rates among municipalities that maintain their own police force compared to those that contract for police services, multiple regression results indicate that contracting does not predict higher non-violent crime rates at the .05 level. Therefore, contracting for police services should be explored as an alternative municipal policing model.
Citation
Schwester, R.W. (2011), "Examining the merits of municipal police contracting", Journal of Public Procurement, Vol. 11 No. 1, pp. 95-107. https://doi.org/10.1108/JOPP-11-01-2011-B004
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2011 by PrAcademics Press