NCJ Number
193239
Journal
Justice Research and Policy Volume: 3 Issue: 2 Dated: Fall 2001 Pages: 79-94
Date Published
2001
Length
16 pages
Annotation
This article provides an overview of the measurement of policing and explains how measuring the proper activities can help improve policing.
Abstract
Traditional police departments measure their performance only in terms of productivity by counting number of arrests, number of citations, the amount of contraband they seize, number of calls for police service, and average response times. There is no clear consensus that a cause-and-effect relationship links this type of police productivity to the reduction of crime or the improvement of public safety. The development and evaluation of community-oriented policing and problem-solving strategies can be enhanced by identifying and measuring appropriate performance objectives. It is also important not to abandon some of the traditional policing performance measures. Creative measures should be supplemented with the outcomes that community and problem-solving philosophies advocate. In addition to reducing crime, other community policing performance measures should focus on improvement in the quality of life, as well as the solving of a pressing community problem. The process for measuring the performance of a community policing initiative begins with establishing goals and objectives during the initial problem-solving stages. For each problem, a unique action plan is developed with a series of strategies and objectives designed to solve the problem. For each objective, a list of expected outcomes is developed and tasks required to accomplish the objective are outlined. The action plan is then implemented, outcomes are tracked, and the number of times that all tasks are performed during the initial implementation period is measured. The accomplishment of each objective is measured in two ways: (1) the actual outcomes are compared with the advance list of expected outcomes to determine the level of quality of the output; and (2) the number of times each task was performed is compared to the outcomes relevant to the task, and the comparisons are expressed in terms of ratios and/or averages. 2 tables, 15 references