Determinants of police growth in Phoenix, 1950–1988*

Abstract

Many explanations (e.g., rising crime) have been advanced for understanding the nature of police growth. Most often cross-sectional analyses have been employed to test the validity of these perspectives. Only three studies have examined police growth using an individual city and longitudinal data. Two of these studies focused on Chicago, the third on Detroit. This research examines the determinants of police growth in Phoenix, Arizona from 1950 through 1988. The primary objective is to test three competing theories of police growth: public choice, conflict, and organizational constraints. We employed ordinary least square (OLS) procedures to assess the determinants of two forms of police growth: police officers per 1,000 population and police expenditures per 100,000 population. Overall the findings support all three perspectives, though we derived the strongest and most consistent explanations from the conflict and organizational constraints perspectives.