Improving Police Performance Measurement - Is the Topic Worth One More Paper?

• NCJ Number: 80939
• Author(s): M A Wycoff
• Date Published: Unknown
• Length: 24 pages
• Grant Number(s): 78-NI-AX-0056
• Sponsoring Agency: National Institute of Justice (NIJ); US Dept of Justice NIJ Pub
• Sale Source: National Institute of Justice/
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Presented to the National Conference of the American Society for Public Administration in 1981, this paper examines measures of police performance which focus on outputs and crime-related components of the police role and then discusses methods for developing measures of noncrime functions, processes, and behaviors.

Abstract

A brief review of the literature criticizes crime-related productivity measures and argues for the creation of specific performance measures. Moreover, the validity of crime-related statistics is limited by disparities among individual agencies in data collection and storage techniques. Most methods labeled as performance measures have assessed reactions to and presumed consequences of behaviors rather than the performance itself. Thus, the effects of an input variable on outcome are evaluated without having any idea what the police actually did in the linking performance or process. Although many studies demonstrate that crime-related issues account for a small part of the total police patrol effort, existing performance measurements reflect only the products of police actions against specific criminal acts. Unfortunately, little interest exists in creating alternative indicators because of the investment of time and funds that would be necessary. Ways to measure performance are illustrated by detailing behaviors that could be documented in a patrol officer's response to any citizen call. Such measures of individual performances could be combined to evaluate units or agencies regarding their policy and training needs and supervisory strenghts or weaknesses, as well as provide a basis for rewards and punishments. An argument is made for a consortium of police researchers and practitioners to create indicators of behavior which could be used across agencies, though perhaps gauged differently by various agencies depending on their needs and objectives. A system of performance measurements is proposed which is based on data collected from a sample of citizens who have requested police service. Footnotes and 24 references are included.