The impact of police interventions and surveillance cameras on crime
Economics Professor Mikael Priks has written a report which highlights the impact of police interventions and surveillance cameras on crime, two areas that have seen significant investments in recent years.
What is your report about?
”It is about how police interventions and surveillance cameras impact crime. It is common for society to deploy interventions where crime is extensive and increasing. This creates misleading associations between surveillance and crime. I focus on highlighting studies that attempt to address this problem.”
What are the effects of increased police interventions and surveillance cameras?
”There are several international studies analysing how police interventions affect crime, focusing on causal relationships. The studies generally show that police interventions reduce both theft and violent crimes. The Swedish studies show that supporter police, interventions against prolific offenders, and surveillance in vulnerable areas have been effective in reducing crime”, Mikael Priks says.
”A recurring result in international research is that surveillance cameras tend to decrease reported crimes in urban environments by about 20 to 25 percent. I have analysed the effects of surveillance cameras in the Stockholm subway and found that crime on inner-city stations decreased to the same extent. Cameras also reduce violent crime and unruly behaviour inside football stadiums in Sweden.”
In your second project, you are studying the so-called youth rebate in the legal system.
How does it affect crime?
”It is ongoing work. We do not find that the youth rebate has any long-term effects on crime. However, we see a certain reallocation of crimes over time. More thefts are committed during the weeks before birthdays when the penalties change, and fewer thefts afterward.”
How do you hope the reports will contribute to society?
”More research using Swedish data and robust methods is needed. I hope that authorities like the police and researchers can coordinate efforts before reforms are made and, ideally, conduct randomized experiments together. The results could provide clearer recommendations to decision-makers.”
Where do we find the report?
”It will be launched with a seminar at SNS on 14 February, and you can download it on their website the same day.”
More about the report and the project
Mikael Prik’s report is part of the SNS research project Crime and society, which takes place between 2022 and 2024.
You can watch the seminar at SVT Forum and here:
Read the full report:
SNS is an independent non-profit organisation that brings together academia, business and government. More about the project:
Text by: Anneli Eriksson
Last updated: February 14, 2024
Source: Department of Economics