The effect of police searches and move-on directions on property and violent crime in New South Wales

Abstract

The New South Wales (NSW) Law Enforcement (Powers and Responsibilities) Act 2002 gave the NSW Police the power in certain circumstances the power to stop, search and detain a person without warrant. The same legislation gave the police the power to direct a person to move on from a place if they believe on reasonable grounds that the person in question is obstructing traffic or another person; engaging in behaviour that is considered harassment or intimidation to another person (or people); behaving in a way that is causing or likely to cause fear to a reasonable person or present in the place in order to unlawfully supply or cause another person to unlawfully supply drugs. The exercise of these powers has attracted considerable controversy, but little is known about their effectiveness in controlling crime. We investigate the relationship between police activity and crime using panel data of 17 Local Area Command for the period 2001 to 2013. We find a significant and strongly negative long-run relationship between both indices of police activity and each of break and enter, motor vehicle theft and robbery. No significant long-run relationship is found between assault and move-on directions. The person search activity is negatively related to assault, but the effect is weak; with a 10% increase in person search only resulting in a 0.5% fall in assaults. The implications for the exercise of police move-on and search powers are discussed.