Journal of Security and Sustainability Issues

The duties of the police (to protect from criminal and other illegal threats life, health, rights and freedoms, property, and the interests of society and the State), requires the substantial financial resources to provide police operations. Nowadays, the police can be considered as a service institution, and the issue of the efficiency of the police work has become topical. The author’s research is focused on the multi-national problem of comparing of police efficiency issue. Selected set of countries are the following: Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Greece, Spain, Croatia, Italy, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Hungary, Malta, Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Finland, Sweden, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. The author’s research is based on the USA and the UK researchers’ studies, surveys of citizens, indicators derived from Eurostat data. The main conclusions of research are the following. The dynamics of the number of crimes recorded in the state, number of crimes recorded by the police per 100,000 residents, as well as the clearance rate cannot be the criteria to determine the efficiency of the police operations. In the situation when regulatory enactments of various countries do not state the same results to be achieved, the author proposes to establish satisfaction with the work of the police and the level of latent crime in the country as universal criteria for transnational comparison.