Measuring What Matters; Part Two: Developing Measures of What the Police Do

• NCJ Number: 167255
• Author(s): T V Brady
• Date Published: 1997
• Length: 15 pages
• Publication Series: NIJ Research in Action
• Agencies: NIJ
• Publication Type: Conference Material

Annotation

This report summarizes the proceedings and papers of the second and third meetings sponsored by the National Institute of Justice and the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services to consider how police departments know what they are doing matters and how they measure what matters.

Abstract

Seven specially commissioned papers were prepared for the second meeting, and they are summarized in this report. They provided the framework for discussions that focused on expectations of the police by the general public, the media, community organizations, local government, and other police constituencies. The main business of the third and final meeting was the deliberations of four groups drawn from the meeting's participants. One group focused on the "impact domain," a cluster of items that the police are supposed to affect: crime, fear of crime, and disorder. Another group addressed the "organizational health domain," which deals with the nature and volume of police business and community support, as well as the level of job satisfaction of police employees and their knowledge of their jobs. A third group discussed the "process domain," which deals with fairness, civility, equitable service, and ethical service; this group also considered the "community assessment domain," which concerns police abilities and ethical behavior. The fourth group discussed the "community context domain," which involves social cohesion, informal social control, and political and social structures. A summarizing session for the third meeting suggested viewing the effectiveness of policing through the prism of business and industry. A listing of 16 selected National Institute of Justice publications about policing