Contents

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IJPSM 12 (2010) 140

Introduction: the use of policing indicators in the developing world
Robert C. Davis

This introduction, to the following set of four papers, discusses the origins of performance indicators as used as a tool to promote police accountability. It discusses different ways of conceptualising what police officers do and how it should be measured. It describes the use of community surveys and other new ways of measuring what the police do and discusses some of the problems inherent in trying to measure performance. The paper provides some examples of how performance indicators are being used in the developed world, and then transitions to how they are being used in some developing countries as well and introduces the four case studies.

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IJPSM 12 (2010) 155

Management indicators used by the Carabineros of Chile
Hugo Frühling

The Carabineros de Chile is the larger of the two law enforcement agencies in the country. Since the transition to democracy in 1990, Carabineros has undertaken reforms to adapt to the new democratic conditions, as well as to respond to Chile's growing crime problem. In 1996, Carabineros created its First Strategic Plan, which emphasised the development of an integrated system aggregating information on the institution's enforcement, administration and budgeting activities. As a result, Carabineros developed a series of crime indicators based on its own data. Since 2000, Carabineros has become increasingly responsive to calls for greater police responsiveness to the public, implementing the socalled Quadrant Plan for Preventive Security in an effort to improve relations with the community. In addition, Carabineros has established operational targets aimed at reducing crime in accordance with the National Public Security Strategy announced by the central Government in 2006. Along with these efforts, the institution is now also using crime indicators based on external data provided by crime victimisation surveys. These have been internal decisions taken by the police, within the context of a governmental policy aimed at modernising the operation of all state institutions. This paper will assess the extent to which the development of performance indicators indicates the consolidation of police oversight mechanisms in Chile.

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IJPSM 12 (2010) 170

Fostering better policing through the use of indicators to measure institutional strengthening
Edgar Mohar

Despite the remarkable achievements in the development of Mexico's democracy, there is a lack of substantial progress in an essential matter: justice and police reform. This has been aggravated in recent years, following a very violent outbreak of organised crime, which has shown the incapability of, and the extent of the corruption within, these institutions. Although there have been 15 years of increased investment in the sector, it is easy to infer that lots of resources have been wasted and little progress achieved because of the lack of clear objectives and sound evaluation. The State of Queretaro, Mexico, developed a programme to promote police reform within the municipal police services, based on standards designed to strengthen the institutional capabilities to measure and improve individual and organisation performance. This paper relates the experience of evaluating police agencies in Queretaro where, as in the rest of the country, police institutions have been historically closed to public scrutiny. It shows the expected and unexpected outcomes, some positive and some negative, of a programme to reform police services through evaluation, with a voluntary, transparent and objective approach.

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IJPSM 12 (2010) 183

Building internal and external constituencies for police reform: an Indonesian case study
Santiago Villaveces-Izquierdo

How can donor assistance facilitate and empower actors of change inside and outside the police? How can donor assistance articulate itself to emerging institutional challenges while at the same time enforcing true local ownership for reform? This article explores such questions by revisiting ICITAP's Institutional Transformation Project (ITP) one year after its completion. The article starts by providing the particulars of Indonesian political and institutional dynamics, and civil society engagement with police reform. With this backdrop the author shows how the ITP was conceived as an attempt to concretise a political concept into an institutional practice. In so doing, the author argues, the ITP became a vehicle for building relationships between police officers and local research institutions, advocacy groups and universities around a common ground that explored the reach of evidence-based planning. The article closes with a review of unanticipated effects and challenges that the outcomes of this project have had in the progress of police reform in Indonesia.

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IJPSM 12 (2010) 195

A model for developing performance indicators in Niger
Lisbet Ilkjaer and Sourghia Soumana Boureima

Niger is one of the poorest countries in the world, which at the same time faces serious security challenges due, among other things, to its location and lack of proper infrastructure. Niger is a republic in West Africa; mostly desert (the Sahara) and bordering countries such as Burkina Faso, Algeria, Libya, Chad and Nigeria. In 2008 Niger was classified as the 174th least developed country out of 179. The official language is French. Niger has begun a process of police reform that includes institutional changes and police education (Reform Programme 2008¿2012). The Danish Institute for Human Rights has worked with the police since 2002 on integrating human rights in police education. In spite of current political willingness to introduce reforms, these face challenges very different from the ones found in more privileged countries. There is a lack of reliable data collection, statistics and means of verification in general; gathering information from the desert area is a major challenge and statistics are not really part of the culture of public institutions in Niger, including the police. Experiences from democratic policing, police reform and performance measurement often come from Anglophone countries with the consequence that most information and documentation only exist in English. The case study discusses the current state of police reform, measurement of police performance and how the process of reform could be advanced by the introduction of policing indicators in a six-step model in Niger.

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IJPSM 12 (2010) 206

Improving regional policing: a review of protective services. Undertaking an audit of a method of analysis using soft systems methodology
Brian Wilson and Kees van Haperen

This paper illustrates how soft systems methodology (SSM) was used in undertaking an audit of an analysis method ¿ Micro-Analysis ¿ for improving effectiveness and efficiency in a particular area of policing known as 'protective services'. The authors were asked to support the Regional Project Director tasked with exploring options for collaboration between North Yorkshire Police, South Yorkshire Police, West Yorkshire Police and Humberside Police. SSM was used to develop a reference model relevant to protective services which, together with information categories for each of the SSM activities and conceptual measures of performance, was used to analyse the efficacy of Micro-Analysis by comparing and contrasting information content. The paper further explains the importance of the use of other techniques and tools to overcome the information richness and to meet the need for flexibility of data representation. Finally, the paper reflects on the deliverables and achieved outcome of the project and suggests some further application of the approach.

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IJPSM 12 (2010) 220

A comparison of the British Crime Survey and police statistics for a southern English county
Faiza Qureshi

The purpose of this research was to examine whether it was possible to use the British Crime Survey (BCS) data on Stop and Search for a southern English police force area (PFA) and to compare the findings from the BCS with those from police records. The local-level analysis of the BCS by PFA and recorded police statistics was an attempt to identify the similarities and differences, if any, between the two data sources. The research compares recorded police and BCS statistics for the same geographical police force area of a southern English county, for the period 2003 to 2006. The analysis looks at the number of stops and searches in each data source and presents a comparison of the ratio of persons arrested following a Stop and Search. The distribution of vehicle and pedestrian stops and searches in the two data sources is examined, as well as the demographic characteristics of suspects. The findings show that the BCS is a more accurate measure of stops than police statistics, although both data sources produced a similar pattern in the proportion of searches and arrests. The BCS showed that motor vehicle encounters were the most common form of contact, whereas police statistics showed that it was pedestrian encounters. However, a limited analysis was conducted using the BCS when the data were subdivided to consider age and ethnicity. Above all, the research has drawn attention to the gulf that exists between the two data sources.

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IJPSM 12 (2010) 238

Sheriffs' and police chiefs' leadership and management decisions in the local law enforcement budgetary process: an exploration
T. Casey LaFrance and MaCherie Placide

While almost all local government administrators frequently interact with municipal police chiefs and county sheriffs, there is a dearth of scholarly literature concerning the decision-making behaviours of these law enforcement executives. This study, as part of a larger project, explores decision-making as it pertains to the annual budgeting process, an important basis for countyor city-wide interaction. The central question of this study is: what is the effect of selection method on a local law enforcement manager's willingness to cooperate with a legislative body during a budget crisis? This exploratory research suggests that the disparate methods by which sheriffs and police chiefs obtain office (election versus appointment) play a role in each executive's decision-making behaviours, albeit in a counterintuitive way: sheriffs are more apt to demonstrate local government leadership through cooperation with the county legislature while police chiefs are more likely to focus their efforts on intradepartmental management.

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IJPSM 12 (2010) 256

'Do you have any difficulties that I may not be aware of?' A study of autism awareness and understanding in the UK police service
Nicholas (Nick) Chown

The autism 'triad of impairments' will often disadvantage those with autism when they come into contact with the Criminal Justice System (CJS) when compared with people without autism. Existing research suggests that people with developmental disabilities such as autism are between 4 and 10 times more likely to become victims of crime than those without such disabilities and may be 10 or more times as likely to be victims of sexual assault and robbery. Anecdotal evidence suggests that people with autism are the subject of discrimination in the CJS due to a general lack of awareness and understanding of autism and its implications in that environment. This study seeks to assess the current understanding of autism awareness and understanding in the UK police service through the means of a questionnaire, and by comparing the results with an earlier study undertaken by researchers in the USA. The long-term aim is to improve responses by CJS personnel to those affected by autism. Overall, as a broad generalisation, individual self-assessments of competency indicated that, currently, police officers are probably unable to deal appropriately with persons with autism. However, in many cases, self-assessments may exaggerate competence. The US study also found that police officers tended to perceive themselves as competent when they may not have been. Not one respondent in this study had received training from the police service fitting him/her to interact effectively with persons on the autism spectrum.

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IJPSM 12 (2010) 274

Police¿parole partnerships in Canada: a review of a promising programme
Marsha Axford and Rick Ruddell

Funded by the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC), the Integrated Police¿Parole Initiative (IPPI) places police officers in CSC offices, where they support the activities of parole staff. First introduced in 2006¿07, these officers work with high-risk offenders in their transition from the penitentiary to community, in order to increase public safety. Analyses of technical violations of conditional releases revealed that sites where these officers were deployed successfully reduced the number of parole violations. These promising results suggest that the IPPI has avoided the ¿community removal¿ element of parole supervision that is evident in some North American jurisdictions, and promotes the safe reintegration of offenders into the community. Implications for public safety, as well as law enforcement and correctional partnerships are discussed. Note: these data were originally obtained as part of a CSC analysis of the IPPI, but the opinions expressed within this study do not necessarily reflect those of the CSC.

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IJPSM 12 (2010) 287

Comparing promotion aspirations among female and male police officers
Carol A. Archbold, Kimberly D. Hassell and Amy J. Stichman

This study compares the promotion aspirations of female and male police officers in a Midwestern police agency in the United States. Survey data revealed that female officers are less likely to pursue promotion compared with male officers. There were both similarities and differences found between the male and female officers in the factors that influenced each group¿s decision not to pursue promotion. This study is important because it reveals how the perceptions held by female and male police officers impact their decision not to pursue promotion. This is especially important for female police officers since there are currently so few women in administrative and supervisory roles.

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Links to other issues

Volume 4 (2002) :   1   2   3   4

Volume 5 (2003) :   1   2   3   4

Volume 6 (2004) :   1   2   3

Volume 7 (2005) :   1   2   3   4

Volume 8 (2006) :   1   2   3   4

Volume 9 (2007) :   1   2   3   4

Volume 10 (2008) :   1   2   3   4

Volume 11 (2009) :   1   2   3   4

Volume 12 (2010) :   1   2

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