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The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of external factors on police efficiency in a sample of Peru’s municipalities. Drawing on the postulates of the contingency theory of organizations, this study argues that because of the public nature of police organizations’ activities, they are heavily influenced by the environment in which they operate, which invariably affects their efficiency.

The study examines police efficiency using a four-stage Data Envelopment Analysis model in a sample of 619 Peruvian municipalities (“distritos”). After adjusting the inputs to the external environment, the remaining inefficiencies are presumed to result from managerial issues and other internal organizational factors.

The results indicate that police efficiency improves after adjusting police inputs to the effect of external factors. The mean efficiency scores improved by 39 percent from 0.57 to 0.79. Because the effects of the external environment can be stronger in larger municipalities, these experience larger improvements in efficiency than smaller municipalities.

There are two important limitations. First, the sample of municipalities in Peru is limited and the results must be interpreted with caution. In addition, the external factors included in the second stage analysis represent only a proportion of all potential external factors which can influence police efficiency. Second, the results presented here explain only one aspect of contingency theory. An important implication of this study suggests that for police managers to make more informed decisions on resource use and allocations, they need a more thorough understanding of the environments in which police operate.

It can assist researchers to ascertain the effects of the external environment on police performance. More importantly, it can assist police managers in making informed decisions about resource use and allocation. Consequently, a better use of resources could lead to better policing and improved citizen safety and security.

This study introduces a new and innovative methodological approach to measure police performance. This multi-stage approach has not been used in the context of democratic policing in Latin America and the Caribbean. The current research fills an important gap on how to measure police performance in developing countries.

The study examined the effects of body-worn cameras (BWCs) on civilian complaints against police using a non-representative national sample of police organizations.

The empirical approach employed a staggered difference in differences design (DiD) that exploited the variation in the timing of adoption of BWCs by police agencies from 2007 to 2016. The study considered two scenarios: (1) a model without any explanatory variables; and (2) a model with explanatory variables. Furthermore, in each model the author two different comparison groups: (1) agencies that never adopted this technology and (2) agencies that adopted BWCs at a later time.

The model without explanatory variables suggest strong and statistically significant reductions in complaints. The simple average estimates show reductions in civilian complaints between 13% and 14%, depending on the model. This is the equivalent of an average reduction of about 30 civilian complaints per capita. The dynamic effects suggested that the length of exposure to BWCs matters in reducing civilian complaints, showing a significant reduction of 47% in civilian complaints. The models with explanatory variables also show slightly lower declines in civilian complaints.

The surge in the adoption of BWCs by police agencies sparked a parallel surge of studies examining their effectiveness on various outcomes. Most research to date has use experimental designs on a single police agency or a small group of agencies. Few studies have employed a large sample of agencies or periods longer than six to 12 months. Evidence on the effects of BWCs on a range of outcomes from larger multi-agency studies and longer periods of analysis will support the already robust specialized literature and inform policymakers about the effectiveness of this technology over time.

The determinants of the fear of crime have been extensively investigated over the past three decades, yet few studies are comparative, include data from developing countries or use attitudes toward the police as explanatory variables. Understanding how perceptions of police performance influence fear of crime is essential to developing strategies which will reduce citizens’ isolation and reluctance to exert informal social control in their communities. Such lack of engagement creates opportunities for increased crime and disorder and heightens fear of crime. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This study examines the mediating effect of perceived confidence in the police on citizens’ fear of crime in seven developing Caribbean region countries using structural equation modeling. The data were collected in a 2011 United Nations survey from representative samples in each nation.

The results indicate that confidence in the police plays a significant and partial mediating role in explaining fear of crime and that community- and individual-level characteristics influence the level of confidence and independently affect fear of crime as well.

This is one of the few studies that employs comparative victimization data in the Caribbean to examine the role that confidence in the police has on fear of crime. The findings of this study will contribute to fill the gap in the understanding of the drivers of fear of crime in developing countries.

In almost all modern societies, police forces are at the forefront of ongoing activities to reduce and prevent crime. Both in practice and in popular belief, police forces are the visible presence for maintaining security and safety to citizens in municipalities, towns and cities, and from cities to local neighborhoods. This paper aims to investigate how efficiently the police in Guatemala are in combating crime using data envelopment analysis (DEA).

The study used DEA to measure the efficiency of police stations in fighting crime in Guatemala based on their inputs and outputs.

The analyses showed that only four out of 22 police departments were considered efficient. The average efficiency score for the 22 police departments was 62 percent.

Data on crime and police are limited in Guatemala. Further research using DEA would be particularly relevant if the methodology included: a wider range of inputs/outputs, longer panel data, and more precise estimates of the effect of contextual variables. The findings of the study can inform police managers and policymakers to allocate security resources more efficiently.

Given the low levels of inefficiency of police departments in Guatemala, police management would have to ensure that clearance rates increase significantly by either increasing the human resource capacity of the police departments according to the needs so that clearance rates can be improved and be more effective and efficient in combating crime.

This is the first in depth study of police efficiency in Central America. In an increasingly resource strapped environment employing DEA might be a useful tool to improve human and financial resource allocation.