Albion Blogger at A Very British Insurgency seems to be on something of a roll at the moment. Two great posts, one on education, one on crime. One thing to add to the crime post. He seems to think that more police will not do very much to reduce crime levels, and he may well be right if they all end up doing yet more paperwork.

Economists look at this slightly differently, thinking that there are two parts to the deterrent value of punishment. The first is the punishment itself, if convicted. Pretty much a no brainer, that a 10 squid fine will deter fewer people than a life sentence. The other is the bit that often gets missed, the liklihood of detection and conviction. You need to multiply the two together to get the expected punishment from a particular action. A 1 in 100 chance of being convicted makes that life sentence if convicted much less powerful as a deterrent.

So, to the extent that more police would raise detection and conviction rates, then yes, more police would help to cut crime.