Can Performance Management Best Practices Help Reduce Crime?

• Date: 01 March 2018
• Published date: 01 March 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12856
• Author: Obed Pasha

Can Performance Management Best Practices Help Reduce Crime? 217

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 78, Iss. 2, pp. 217–227. © 2017 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.12856.

Can Performance Management

Best Practices Help Reduce Crime?

Obed Pasha is assistant professor of

public policy and administration in the Levin

College of Urban Affairs, Cleveland State

University. His research interests focus on

performance management and other public

administration reforms in criminal justice,

health care, and transportation.

E-mail: o.pasha@csuohio.edu

Abstract: As performance management systems gain popularity in police agencies, they are increasingly being

criticized for their ineffectiveness at reducing crime and for encouraging abuse of authority. Scholars and practitioners,

however, argue that these systems can be effective if they are implemented properly with the use of best practices. This

article contributes to this debate by evaluating the impact of performance management systems and associated best

practices on improving police performance. An analysis of primary survey data of 308 U.S. police agencies shows

that performance management systems are effective tools in helping reduce crime across almost all crime categories.

However, the best practices of performance reporting to citizens and providing discretion to officers have no significant

impact on crime reduction, while consulting officers in the target-setting process has a negative impact on police

performance.

Evidence for Practice

• Performance management systems are effective at improving organizational performance, but only for the

performance dimensions that can be planned and strategized.

• The practice of consulting with employees before setting performance targets is detrimental to overall

organizational performance. Performance targets should be set through a centralized process. However,

consulting with officers might have other benefits, such as improving employee morale and internalizing

targets.

• Employee discretion has only a weak impact on organizational performance. Notwithstanding other benefits

of this practice, such as fostering innovation, police departments may consider reducing officer autonomy to

curtail potential abuse of authority.

• Providing performance feedback to citizens might help with other objectives, such as cultivating trust

between police departments and the public, but it does not impact performance in terms of reducing crime.

P olice agencies are essential organs of society

that are mandated to maintain order, enforce

the law, and provide services to citizens. In

pursuit of their mission, these organizations have

gone through many reforms over the last few decades

with the goal of becoming more service oriented

in their approach (Coleman 2008 ). Such efforts

under the New Public Management and Proactive

Police Management frameworks paved the way for

the adoption of performance management systems

in these agencies in the 1990s (Bayley 2008 ). Best

practices were subsequently developed by scholars and

practitioners to improve these systems and mitigate

their flaws.

Performance management systems are now well-

established concepts that are increasingly being

adopted by police agencies in the United States and

abroad (Van Sluis, Cachet, and Ringeling 2008).

These systems are hailed for improving police

performance, on the one hand (e.g., Behn 2014 ), and

blamed for encouraging abuse of authority, on the

other (Eterno and Silverman 2010 ). Some scholars

argue that these systems can be made effective if

certain best practices are applied with their use (Behn

2014 ; Mastrofski 2006 ).

This article contributes to this discussion by

empirically examining the role of performance

management and accompanying best practices

in helping police agencies improve performance.

Previous research in other contexts, such as education,

transportation, and local government management,

has produced mixed results on the effectiveness of

performance management systems. Some of these

studies (e.g., Dias and Maynard-Moody 2007 ; Soss,

Fording, and Schram 2011 ) found negative or no

effects of performance management, while others

Obed Pasha

Cleveland State University