Good day fellow Vizzed members.

So earlier today I was attempting to find crime statistics from around the globe and I was going to compare them to countries that have the highest police force (both in terms of numbers and funding) for a college paper (see the school forum for more details on that). While doing this research I started to question if this information was going to help or hurt my paper even more, as I was going to show that countries that have a well-funded and larger police force have a lower crime rate (thus I'm trying to prove that there is an inverse relationship). But I've sort of hit an "intelligence wall" while trying to from my proof.

What I've been seeing is that countries that have a well-funded and larger police force have a higher crime rate (thus there isn't an inverse relationship). But I know for certain that the reason that crime rates are higher in these areas is because this larger and well-funded police force are making more arrests for illegal acts compared to those who have smaller and not-well funded police forces. Since a smaller police force has a limit and must consolidate their resources else where, people are more than likely to get away with crimes, thus it wouldn't effect the crime rate since crime rates only fact those who've been arrested/caught (at least I believe they do) and since people are not being caught the crime goes unreported.

Take for example Marijuana laws. As some of you know Washington (state) and Colorado made recreational use of marijuana legal (up to a certain amount). Now since these laws make it legal to carry around and smoke small amounts of pot, these people can't be arrested (at the state level, federal level you still can) as they are not committing an illegal act, thus since they aren't getting arrested the crime rate would go down in marijuana arrests which is what pro-marijuana legalization supports say will happen. But we know this is not the case since these people are still committing an illegal act (at the federal level, not state); but since they are not getting arrested they are not being factored into the crime rate. Thus while it appears that these sort of laws work are reducing crime, the fact of the matter is that the illegal act is still being committed, nobody is getting arrest thus its not being factored into the crime rate formula.

FYI: I'm pro-legalization so if people think I'm anti-legalization they are wrong.

So hopefully you all see my dilemma. So here are my questions to you all.

Does a more populated, well-funded police force more effective at combating crime?

How should I disprove my findings that a well-funded police force increases crime rates for my paper?