To read this content please select one of the options below:

Examining the merits of municipal police contracting

Richard W. Schwester (Department of Public Management, and Associate Director, Academy for Critical Incident Analysis, John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY))

Journal of Public Procurement

ISSN: 1535-0118

Article publication date: 1 March 2011

52

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

Related articles