NCJ Number
84655
Date Published
1982
Length
35 pages
Annotation
Police (agency) organization for public service delivery affects the quantity and quality of services supplied and illustrates the necessity for police performance measurements.
Abstract
The relationship of organizational structure to productivity is particularly important due to the growing awareness of budget constraints in the presence of growing service demands. Urban policing can be conceptualized as a multifirm industry. The structure of service delivery arrangements for that industry affects the behavior of that industry and of individual police agencies within the industry. Police performance can be measured by the agencies' relative technical efficiencies in producing two common outputs: clearances by arrest and response capacity as indicated by deployment of patrol units available to respond to citizens' requests. Input factors include the numbers of civilian and sworn personnel, automobiles and other vehicles, and communications gear. Applying these concepts to data from municipal police agencies shows that agencies' technical efficiencies vary widely. The spread in efficiency is particularly wide among departments employing fewer than 30 sworn officers. In addition, the relative efficiency of the most efficient departments is higher in areas with larger numbers of patrol 'producers.' Findings are consistent with arguments built on the logic of industry production and information availability as a function of the structure of metropolitan service delivery. Further multivariate analyses are planned. Figures, tables, footnotes, and 28 references are provided.