Police infrastructure, police performance, and crime: evidence from austerity cuts

Exploiting unprecedented austerity cuts, this paper studies a reorganization that closed over 70% of London police stations while keeping force-wide police strength unchanged and reallocating officers to surviving stations. Combining geocoded police records with victimization survey data, I find that distance from stations raises violent crime, reduces police effectiveness, and lowers crime reporting, confidence in policing, and house prices. Officer concentration at surviving stations generates offsetting gains, reducing violent crime and increasing house prices. Aggregating both margins, a spatial model yields a net increase in violent crime, with substantial heterogeneity across neighborhoods. Alternative closure policies could have offset this increase.