This study is particularly interested in how the structure of service delivery arrangements for policing in a metropolitan area, conceptualized as a multifirm industry, affects the behavior of individual police agencies within the industry. The explanation is based on intraorganizational and interorganizational factors for the effects shown. The study focuses on the relative technical efficiency of municipal police agencies in the production of two common outputs: clearances by arrest and response capacity (the deployment of patrol units available to respond to citizens' requests for police services). Technical efficiency refers to the tranformation of input factors to outputs. More efficient production units obtain more output from the same inputs. Relative technical efficiency is determined by measuring the technical efficiency of each police agency against that of other police agencies using similar production techniques to obtain similar outputs. A preliminary analysis of the effects of several variables (particularly metropolitan police 'industry structure') on the relative efficiency of police departments suggests that police agencies operating in areas with more local departments may be more efficient than those operating in areas with few local departments. Tabular and graphic data, footnotes, and 16 references are provided.