The Evaluation of Police Effectiveness

Abstract

The development of a methodology for the evaluation of police effectiveness is described. It is argued that this is required to assist the police in producing guidelines for future action. The inadequacies of current evaluation techniques within this sphere are delineated. The proposed methodology relies heavily upon the notion that subjective knowledge and judgement have a crucial role to play in decision making at all levels. The concept of “subjectivity” is discussed at some length. The methodology was designed on behalf of clients within the Home Office for use by a group of senior police officers (the Police Effectiveness Evaluation Panel) who were responsible for evaluating a specific experimental policing project. The intention was to provide a meaningful framework for evaluation rather than to provide ultimate answers. The main aim of the methodology was to elicit, explore and make explicit the subjective opinions of the evaluators (jointly and as a group) on: i) the objectives of policing; ii) the relationships between these objectives; iii) the indicators which could be used to determine success in achieving such objectives. Various techniques were developed to assist this process. These are described, as is their application to the panel's work. The information so derived was used by the group in reaching conclusions on the success (or otherwise) of the policing scheme under consideration. An account of this process is given. It appears that the methodology could be usefully adopted by others undertaking evaluations within the policing context. It is recommended that the actual methodology be used by these other evaluators and not the output of the work described here. The intention was to reflect the subjective opinion of one group of evaluators and not to produce "correct" answers for application elsewhere. This methodology also appears to have relevance to evaluation problems in other organisations, particularly those within the public sector.