NCJ Number
234533
Journal
Journal of Criminal Justice Volume: 39 Issue: 2 Dated: March/April 2011 Pages: 128-136
Date Published
April 2011
Length
9 pages
Annotation
This article examines temporal and spatial variations in crime linked to the Queensland Police Service's adoption of a version of COMPSTAT known as Operational Performance Reviews (OPRs).
Abstract
At the core of the COMPSTAT approach and its OPR adaptation are four crime reduction principles: accurate and timely intelligence about crime made available at all levels in the organization; selection of the most effective tactics for specific problems; rapid deployment of people and resources in order to implement those tactics; and follow-up and assessment in order to learn what occurred and make tactical adjustments as necessary. Overall, the current analysis of OPRs suggests that there were variations in the crime control impact of OPRs across Queensland's 29 police districts. Some districts performed better over time in constraining crime rates than others and the district-to-district performance varied for different categories of crime. The research suggests that further crime reductions across Queensland can occur if district commanders consistently adopt a problem-oriented approach to dealing with specific district and divisional crime problems. A mixed model analytical approach was used to assess the role of OPRs in explaining spatial and temporal variations in crime patterns across Queensland's 29 police districts. Monthly reported offense data were used to assess the impact of OPRs. Upon receipt of police data, 60 crime categories were reduced to 6 broad crime categories. There were a total of 108 observation points that spanned from July 1995 to June 2004. They included 73 pre-OPR monthly counts and 35 post-OPR monthly counts. 3 tables, 6 notes, and 63 references