Results of measures of police effectiveness in 59 countries indicated strong support for the convex curvilinear hypothesis in which democracy and police effectiveness related to one another in a U-shaped configuration. This U-shape configuration illustrates that undemocratic countries and advanced democratic countries experience the highest levels of police effectiveness while countries in the middle-range of democracies showed lower levels of police effectiveness. The findings suggest that as countries begin the process of democratization, they will initially become less content with their policing but that as they continue on the path of democratic consolidation, law enforcement institutions will eventually be strengthened. Data were drawn from the 1999 Executive Opinion Survey conducted by the World Economic Forum. Police effectiveness was measured by asking business analysts’ their perception of whether police effectively safeguarded personal security. Democracy was measured with the index of political rights compiled by the Freedom House, which rates countries on the degree of openness of their political institutions and processes of citizen participation. The validity of the four hypotheses was tested by performing bivariate and multivariate analyses using ordinary least square procedures. The study is limited by its use of data provided only by business analysts; future studies should test the same hypotheses using a more representative sample. Tables, figure, references, appendix