Diffusion of benefits: evaluating a police operation

Jerry Ratcliffe and Toni Makkai explore the impact of a targeted policing operation to reduce property crime.

By comparing property crime data for the Australian Capital territory and surrounding areas of New South Wales, they find no evidence for displacement, either spatially or by crime type, following a significant burglary reduction strategy, Operation Anchorage, in the ACT in 2001. They suggest that there was a diffusion of benefits as car crime and burglary in the surrounding parts of NSW saw significant reductions.