NCJ Number
123789
Journal
Policing Volume: 5 Issue: 4 Dated: (Winter 1989) Pages: 287-304
Date Published
1989
Length
18 pages
Annotation
Assessment of police performance requires a combination of facts and professional judgement as well as use of data already collected within the police service.
Abstract
The media often misuses universally accepted performance measures such as crime and detection rates and excludes more meaningful measures of the major police functions. For example, police researchers in the United Kingdom have created a framework for evaluating the crime/fingerprint services that allows the examination of the performance of each component of the services. The framework brings out the interrelationships between these components which together make up an effective scene of crime/fingerprint services. This performance framework organizes the indicators at different levels of the organization, makes tradeoffs between indicators explicit, builds in professional expertise, explains how the system functions, and identifies what is missing. The framework has also been applied to the larger crime investigation/detection police function. The indicators of detection performance were drawn out from available information on detection methods. Although the framework is still in the early stages of development, it has already provided some insights into areas of concern for police managers. Through this type of analysis, several key characteristics of a performance measurement have been identified: it has to measure something important, it has to be susceptible to change through police management action, it has to be unambiguous, and it has to be easy to measure. 7 figures. (Publisher abstract modified)