Measuring Police Impact on Organised Crime: a Review of SCDEA's Key Performance Indicators

Citation

Armstrong S, Hamilton-Smith N & Mackenzie S (2009) Measuring Police Impact on Organised Crime: a Review of SCDEA's Key Performance Indicators. Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency (SCDEA). Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research.

Abstract
This report addresses the current system of KPIs at SCDEA. We review those KPIs, and analyse the issues they raise by way of a comparative study of KPIs in other sectors. We address the major problem of how to measure harm in communities, and consider realistic ways in which SCDEA activity might be judged against the short, medium and long term goals which constitute the overall aim of reducing harm. The solution we propose is a combination of three ideas: (a) a programme logic model, (b) a pathway model, and (c) evaluation structures, centred around the structure of an ‘evaluation panel'.

Keywords
CRIME; IMPACT; Performance; Police; review; Performance measurement; performance indicators; policing; organised crime

People

Dr Niall Hamilton-Smith

Associate Professor, Sociology, Social Policy & Criminology