Closure of Police Stations in Municipalities Increases Thefts and Burglaries

As a result of a large-scale police reform, the state of Baden-Württemberg closed around 40 per cent of municipal police stations. In a recent study carried out by the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) in Mannheim, researchers investigated in which ways the shut-down of police stations affected the local crime rate. According to the findings of the study, the closure of police stations led to a strong increase in both car thefts and domestic burglaries in the respective municipalities. What is more, the study shows that the further away a municipality is from a police station the higher is the crime rate in that municipality.

The study is based on data on locations of police stations before and after the reform in the period between 1990 and 2011 in the state of Baden-Württemberg. Within the framework of the study, ZEW researchers analysed the effects of 167 police station closures and the subsequent relocation of policemen to the remaining stations. The findings of the study indicate, on the one hand, that the reform had no effect on the overall crime rate, nor did it affect many crime categories such as violent crimes. At the same time, the reform had, however, a major effect on the number of thefts in the municipalities that underwent closures. While car thefts and domestic burglaries increased by 12 and 17 per cent, respectively, motorcycle thefts recorded an increase of eight per cent. In contrast, the number of bikes stolen in these municipalities decreased by around 13 per cent.

Closure of police stations prompted criminals to shift their focus

“The closure of local police stations considerably decreased the visibility of local policing in the municipalities, and increased the distance to the closest police station. As a result, criminal offenders shifted their focus from stealing goods with typically low monetary values, such as bikes, to the theft of high-value goods like cars,” explains Sebastian Blesse, researcher in ZEW’s Research Department “Corporate Taxation and Public Finance” and co-author of the study.

The results of the study further suggest that the police station closures did not have any effect on the detection rate of criminal activities, indicating that the reform did not improve police efficiency.As the findings further suggest, the closure of police stations has a particularly negative effect on the number of crimes recorded if the distance to the nearest police station increases disproportionally. In the municipalities that were affected by closures, the distance to the closest police station ranged between 2.2 and 13 kilometres. “Those municipalities that are located more than six kilometres away from the nearest police station recorded a stronger increase in thefts than those that are closer to a police station. A greater distance to a local police station thus causes a change in behaviour among criminals and undermines the deterrent effect of criminal law enforcement,” concludes Sebastian Blesse. “Nevertheless, our findings indicate that the closure of police stations did not encourage more people to become criminally active. Rather, it prompted criminals to shift their focus towards other activities.”

For more information please contact

Sebastian Blesse, Phone +49 (0)621-1235-394, E-mail sebastian.blesse@zew.de