NCJ Number
91566
Date Published
1979
Length
67 pages
Annotation
This report traces the history of the St. Paul Police Department's (Minnesota) managing-criminal-investigations (MCI) program from its inception in 1976 through the end of the grant period in mid-1978, and evaluation results are presented along with a survey of the status of MCI activities still in operation.
Abstract
The St. Paul Police Department successfully implemented activities within four component areas of the MCI program: enhancing the role of patrol officers, formalizing the case screening process, improving the management of criminal investigation, and improving police-prosecutor relationships. The evaluation plan involved examining the links between the MCI program activities and the outcomes the department expected those activities to produce. First, the activity/outcome links were studied to determine whether the department's expectations were plausible. Then the evaluators observed the extent to which the expected outcomes materialized, and their occurrence was examined in relation to the relevant MCI activities. The department's overall goals of increasing the number of offenders arrested, prosecuted, and convicted have been partially achieved. Although case clearance rates appear to have improved slightly, there was no noticeable change in arrest rates. Based upon sample data for 1976-78, the percentage of convictions among cases sent to the prosecutor appears to have increased; however, the extent to which MCI activities contributed to these results could not be isolated from the impact of the team-policing program. The appendix presents a detailed analysis of total Part I crime and the individual offenses of robbery, burglary, and larceny.