What does the world spend on policing?

Social indicators vary in their breadth and coverage. One popular indicator of the priority that society gives to specific areas of life is a measure of monetary expenditure. Do we spend more or less on X or on Y? Is the bala nce correct? A necessary precursor to such comparisons is measurement. This paper presents a method for estimating annual global expenditure on polici ng. Data from the fifth sweep of the United Nations Survey of Crime Trends and Criminal Justice Systems are supplemented with information from other s ources. The relationship between gross domestic product and policing expend iture is examined via regression methods. The coefficients are used to extr apolate across space to produce national policing estimates from which a gl obal estimate is derived. It is estimated that the world spent U.S. $194 bi llion on public policing in the year 2000. The method utilized to produce t his estimate is described, and the implications and possibilities for futur e research are discussed.