The assumption of rational public choice theory is that citizens' demands for various services influence municipal expenditures. Thus, increases in crime lead to an increase in citizens' demand for police protection. In contrast, social conflict theorists argue that powerful groups impose views on weaker groups. An increase in police growth represents efforts to control the less powerful and advance the interests of those in power. The organizational inertia perspective assumes that organizational strength, as measured by annual budgets, is explained by incremental specification models whereby the appropriations in the previous year are used as predictors of the current year's budget. According to this theory, budget makers react to conditions such as crime. Most of the data used in this study were obtained directly from official public records. The dependent variables were two different measures designed to assess police growth: police strength, measured as the number of police per 1,000 population; and police expenditures, measured as allocations per 100,000 population. Four different crime measures were used as independent variables to represent the public choice perspective: violent crime rates, property crime rates, violent arrest rates, and property arrest rates. Overall, the findings support all three perspective, although the strongest and most consistent explanations were derived from the conflict and organizational constraints perspectives. 7 tables and 85 references