Improving public service delivery through competition between police service providing units

In a novel empirical attempt, this pilot study investigates whether changing the structure of police services to encourage competition between different service delivery units, has an effect on crimes like corruption, improve citizen trust in the police and overall public service delivery. This study is based in the context of Punjab police, Pakistan. The police set up citizen facilitation centers or Khidmat Markaz, as monopoly providers of a set of services. Working with Punjab police and CERP, researchers plan to pilot two interventions. The first randomly adds new Khidmat Markaz providing the same services, thereby changing the monopoly status of existing police providers. The second treatment rewards the best Khidmat Markaz financially or non-financially, with an aim is to reduce the chance of collusion between multiple police units. This study will have significant policy implications and can expand the set of tools at the disposal of crime control and anti-corruption establishments, not just in Pakistan.