Building police legitimacy through measuring and managing performance. By Chief Cameron S. Mc. Lay (ret.)These are tough times for those of us in policing…The crisis of confidence and legitimacy that characterizes post- Ferguson policing illustrates a vital lesson for local governments and their police. We, the police, must hold ourselves accountable for the outcomes of our policing services. We must measure our work and our outcomes based on a broader number of measures than simply measuring crime rates, and must continually reexamine our efforts in response to feedback and performance short- falls. As with education and health care, policing would be well served by becoming more outcome- based.
If the purpose for police interventions is to reduce crime, fear and disorder, to create safe communities suitable for normal civic life to occur, the question “Are we being successful in achieving these outcomes” must be part of the calculus. In other words, each police agency must operate as an open system, using feedback as a learning loop for constant performance improvement — becoming more responsive to to public needs and mindful of the impact of our efforts. The foundational concepts of modern policing dates back to Sir Robert Peel in England in the 1. Under this paradigm, the police are simply an extension of the community — those citizens paid to perform the duties incumbent upon every citizen in a free democracy to contribute to the maintenance of safety and public order. Police success is dependent upon the cooperation of the public, and their power emanates from the consent of those served.
Police are to be judged by the absence of crime, disorder and fear, rather than the measures of their enforcement work. Policing’s desired outcomes are simply less crime, less fear and people having a greater sense their community is a safe and just place. We teach this to every recruit going through our academies. How many of us can rightly claim our communities feel our agency’s performance and systems reflect this value system? Unfortunately, police agencies often do not measure their performance based upon community outcomes and public sentiment as a focal point. We, the police, have long believed as long as we perform our work well, as defined by standards we established, public opinion about our services is not vitally important. Police- community relations, in this paradigm, is mostly about educating the public about what we do, and why we do it that way.
We tell ourselves, “if they only understood us better, the public would finally understand and accept the outcomes of our policing efforts.”To be competitive, private companies have long since learned the importance of data analysis to monitor and manage their organizational performance. Private companies do not survive unless they hold themselves accountable for performance outcomes. Their products and services must satisfy the demands of their consumers, must be high quality, and must be affordable if they are to compete. Police and many government agencies have historically operated with the assumption their monopoly for service delivery makes customer satisfaction, and cost/benefit analysis, less important for their successes. Forgetting police performance requires public cooperation, we tend to believe we, the police, are the most well- informed judges of quality police services. The concept of controlling costs, especially social impact costs, tends to be alien to all but the most conscientious police executives.
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The fact is, as with private sector agencies, the outcomes of our policing efforts matter. When police are successful, our contribution is nothing less than bringing peace and justice to those we serve. But when we fall short, we find communities held hostage to fear — distrustful of those employed to keep them safe. The stakes are indeed high.
With the development of Comp. Stat in the mid- 1. NYPD pioneered the application of data analysis to measure and manage agency efforts to reduce crime and disorder.
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Today, Comp. Stat- style performance management systems are widely viewed as a best practice in policing. The use of data, hot- spot policing, “putting cops on the dots” of crime maps has arguably been highly successful in driving down reported crime, but it has had unintended consequences in some communities. When police target those communities where crime and violence is the highest — too often communities of poverty and color — the resultant enforcement efforts often created significant, albeit unintended consequences. Fire departments go where the fires occur. Police agencies often find themselves in a “Catch- 2. The reality in the U. S. is areas of poverty are often communities of color.
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Racial disparities in police contact and arrest are common when police, motivated to protect communities and fight crime, find themselves focusing their enforcement efforts on those few communities where crime concentration is the highest. Police are morally and legally obligated to provide safe communities for all, but when they do public trust and confidence can suffer greatly due to the racial disparities that typically follow. There is a place in the middle. Police must work with the active engagement of community residents, to become partners in creating safe neighborhoods. Without the engagement of those living in the impacted areas, perceptions of predatory motivations for police actions can result, further diminishing trust between police and those receiving police service.
At a time when crime is a near 2. How then to we continue to be effective in driving down crime, while addressing the unintended consequences of our policing efforts? The current crisis of confidence facing policing has mobilized many to examine how to address this dilemma. George Kelling, the father of “Broken Windows Theory” of policing, has called for policing to be measured by on a broader set of performance metrics: “Compstat is the most important administrative policing development of the past 1. Compstat appropriately focuses on crime, but I think the danger is that Compstat doesn’t always balance that focus with the other values that policing is supposed to pursue….
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I want Compstat to measure and discuss things like complaints against officers, and whether police are reducing fear of crime in the community. The Compstat systems of the future must reflect all of the values the police should be pursuing.”—Dr.
George Kelling, Rutgers University. The challenge then becomes how to best enhance the effectiveness of police agencies in reducing crime and disorder, while also building public trust and confidence. How do we lower victimization rates, create safe public places and ensure police are meeting the quality of life needs of each of the communities they service, and also identify any unintended adverse impacts of police interventions in time for corrective action? How do we ensure police actions exact no unacceptable social costs? Let’s learn from policing’s successes, like Comp. Stat and the wide variety of highly positive community engagement and problem- oriented policing interventions, and from the private sector’s innovations for measuring customer impact.
We need data; we need engagement, and we need to know how our services are impacting those we serve. Private sector has long engaged in the use of data analytics to understand customer satisfaction and to better understand the market in which they operate.
Companies often use data on enhancing productivity, improving product quality and streamlining inefficiencies. Just companies use market analysis and customer satisfaction as another vital barometer of performance. Each change in products or operations is tracked for its impact on customer satisfaction and impact on market needs.
In order to build trust and confidence — perceived legitimacy with the public — police must develop more complete performance metrics to measure and manage 2. Century policing. They must use data analytics to measure and manage organizational and individual member performance. They must hold themselves and their members accountable for the performance outcomes of their work, to include the impact of their actions on public perceptions of safety, justice and satisfaction with police service.
Perhaps most important, elected officials must understand and embrace their responsibility to ensure their constituents receive the quality of police services they deserve.