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Report Ranks Top Ten Worst Cities On Police Spending

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Casey Harper Contributor
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A new report on police spending has ranked the most populated U.S. cities with some surprising results.

The report from WalletHub found that some of the country’s most crime-ridden cities are also the smartest spenders on police forces.

WalletHub took the 110 most populous U.S. cities and analyzed their crime rates in light of their spending per capita on police. After adjusting for poverty rate, unemployment rate and household median income, they found which of those cities are getting the best bang for their buck — and which aren’t.

The most inefficient cities on police spending from worst to best, according to WalletHub:

  1. Washington, D.C.
  2. Fort Lauderdale, FL
  3. Orlando, FL
  4. Fremont, CA
  5. Huntington Beach, CA
  6. San Francisco, CA
  7. Saint Louis, MO
  8. Long Beach, CA
  9. Anchorage, AK
  10. New York, NY

Topping the list as the most efficient cities on police spending:

  1. Flint, MI
  2. Jackson, MS
  3. El Paso, TX
  4. Springfield, MA
  5. Louisville, KY
  6. Kansas City, KS
  7. Lexington, KY
  8. Buffalo, NY
  9. Lincoln, NE
  10. Syracuse, NY

It’s important to note that these are not necessarily the safest cities, just those that most efficiently spend tax dollars on police.

“A statistic like the crime rate can be an important piece of evidence in informing expenditure decisions, but it ultimately can only tell one part of the story with respect to citizen safety,” Jacob Fowles, assistant professor of Public Affairs and Administration at the University of Kansas, said in the report. “We are entering a new era of data availability and cities need to focus on enhancing their analytic capacity in order to make timely, effective and efficient decisions with scarce public dollars. But we must also be especially cognizant of the biases and flaws of various metrics in order to avoid being distracted or led astray.”

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