International approaches to police performance measurement

By Emma Zürcher, Lana Eekelschot, Annalena Wolcke, Lucy Strang

Police performance measurement is a complex activity that encompasses considerations of the social, legal, institutional and political contexts in which a police force operates. The definitions and methods used need to be regularly updated and adapted to reflect the constant changes in these contexts. This study follows from a broader desire, articulated by the national police force and the Ministry for Justice and Security, to improve how police performance is measured in the Netherlands. Indeed in 2014, Tilburg University and KU Leuven conducted a study to develop a new framework for productivity measurement of the Dutch police.1 While this study provided useful insights, approaches to performance measurement adopted by police forces abroad may also offer valid examples for the Netherlands and provide opportunities for general learning. Research design The study had two main goals: 1) To gather insights into how different police jurisdictions have approached performance measurement. 2) To assess what lessons these approaches can offer for improving police performance measurement in the Netherlands. A series of research questions were developed to meet these goals (see Section 1.1.2.). These questions focused on the methods and indicators used to measure performance in a selection of ten policing jurisdictions,2 including the Netherlands; the stated purposes of the performance measurement; the reliability of the approaches; identified or potential adverse side effects of measuring performance; and examples of good or innovative practice in these areas. In addition, several research questions focused on the methods and indicators used to gain insight into the performance of the Dutch police; the aspects of policing not currently captured in this framework; the lessons that approaches to performance measurement in other jurisdictions may offer the Netherlands; and the transferability of these approaches to the Netherlands. To address these research questions, the study team conducted a targeted literature review and expert and stakeholder interviews in each of these jurisdictions, including the Netherlands. The team then selected five case study jurisdictions for more in-depth data collection and analysis: England and Wales, Israel, North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany), Seattle (United States) and Sweden. Using the resulting findings, the study team focused on extracting current practices from the case study jurisdictions that had potential to offer  starting points for improving police performance measurement in the Netherlands. These are presented in the main body of this report. For the countries not selected as case studies (Australia, Canada, Finland, New Zealand and the United States), the study team prepared high-level summaries of current approaches and highlighted several relevant practices that may be of interest to policy makers for the Dutch National Police. These are presented in Annex A. To provide focus and enhance the feasibility of the research, this study looks exclusively at how police performance measurement has been approached by stakeholders who can directly influence policing policy, such as the police force and national- and local-level government stakeholders. For each of the case study jurisdictions, the research team has analysed the practices used by the relevant police force(s) and the administrative and/or political authority under which they sit. We are confident that the findings will therefore be of particular interest to decision-makers for the Dutch National Police, including police leadership at both national and regional levels and the Ministry of Justice and Security, and provide leads for improving how police performance is currently measured.        

Cambridge, UK: RAND Europe, 2023. 182p