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Measuring Police Unit Performance

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Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice
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Overview

Although police performance measurement has gotten increased attention in recent decades (Shane 2007; Fleming and Scott 2008; Davis 2012), it has been a longstanding concern of scholars and policy makers (Lind and Lipsky 1971; Parks 1971). The ability to measure how well the police are performing is central to notions of police effectiveness, accountability, reform, and the current emphasis on evidence-based policing. Without accurate performance measurement, aspirations toward implementation of strategic policing, scientific policing, and a new approach to police professionalism (Weisburd and Neyroud 2011; Stone and Travis 2011) are mostly rhetoric, not reality.

Table 1 Unit measures for a police district or precinct

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Correspondence to Gary Cordner .

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Cordner, G. (2014). Measuring Police Unit Performance. In: Bruinsma, G., Weisburd, D. (eds) Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5690-2_189

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5690-2_189

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