One-or two-officer cars? A perspective from Kansas City

The relationship of police patrol-car staffing to response time is examined. The first systematic study of police patrol-car staffing, conducted in San Diego in 1977, found that two one-officer cars responded to the scene of an incident faster than one two-officer car. Given the study design, this finding was puzzling. When two one-officer cars are dispatched, at least one of the cars has farther to go, and the extra travel distance should require extra travel time. The present study replicated the previous empirical analysis with data from the Kansas City Response Time Analysis Study. Although it was expected that additional control variables would provide an explanation for the findings, the results were the same. Two one-officer cars are faster than one two-officer car. One explanation for this finding is that peer pressure among officers provides different incentives for rapid response in one- and two-officer cars. The policy implication is that the deployment of two-officer cars cannot be justified by minimized response time.     

Concepts in survival from lethal handgun wounds

Autopsy cases of deaths from handgun wounds were studied. Survival times were estimated from time of the incident until the time of pronouncement on police reports. Two groups were apparent--short-term and non-short-term survivors. These groups were compared statistically with respect to age, race, sex, Spanish surname, alcohol, drugs detected at autopsy, caliber of projectile, frequency of shots, and location of injury.     

Fear and criminal victimization among elderly public housing residents

The influence of crime among the elderly was investigated in this study. The study suggests that crime prevention programs among the elderly should be implemented with some reservations. Since the risks of criminal victimization are low among the elderly, it may not be possible to reduce those rates much further, even with elaborate security programs for the elderly. On the contrary, raising the salience of crime by placing great emphasis on preventive behavior may well foster social isolation among the elderly.     

Public or private health services? A Skeptic's view

For many years economists writing on the delivery of health services dusted off the traditional promarket analyses of textbooks and applied them uncritically to the health care industry. Specialists in health care today are far more cautious. From the medical side there has been an increasing interest in the economic implications of health care organization and medical practice. Good research drawing on the skills of economists and other specialists is rapidly growing. This research offers little support either to those who reason abstractly from a market ideology or to those who are uncritically committed to socialized health care.     

DOING GOOD WELL: The Use of Quantitative Social Science Data in Advocacy Proceedings

When social scientists participate in advocacy proceedings as expert witnesses, they find themselves subjected to pressures beyond those of scientific quality. This paper considers a range of problems when the demands of scientific merit interact with the exigencies of vigorous advocacy and suggests some rough guidelines for expert testimony.