Understanding the Limits of Technology’s Impact on Police Effectiveness

• Published date: 01 June 2017
• Author: James Willis,Christopher S. Koper,Cynthia Lum
• DOI: 10.1177/1098611116667279
• Date: 01 June 2017
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Understanding the

Limits of Technology’s

Impact on Police

Effectiveness

Cynthia Lum

1

, Christopher S. Koper

1

,

and James Willis

1

Abstract

Technology has become a major source of expenditure and innovation in law

enforcement and is assumed to hold great potential for enhancing police work.

But does technology achieve these expectations? The current state of research on

technology in policing is unclear about the links between technologies and outcomes

such as work efficiencies, effectiveness in crime control, or improved police–com-

munity relationships. In this article, we present findings from a mixed-methods,

multiagency study that examines factors that may mediate the connection between

technology adoption and outcome effectiveness in policing. We find that police view

technology through technological and organizational frames determined by trad-

itional and reactive policing approaches. These frames may limit technology’s poten-

tial in the current reform era and cause unintended consequences.

Keywords

technology, policing, effectiveness, technological frames, police outcomes

Introduction

Technology has become a major source of expenditure and innovation in law

enforcement in the last four decades and is often assumed to hold great potential

for enhancing the ability of police to do their work. At the most basic level,

1

Department of Criminology, Law and Society, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA

Corresponding Author:

Cynthia Lum, Department of Criminology, Law and Society, George Mason University, 4400 University

Drive, MS 6D12, Fairfax, VA 22030, USA.

Email: clum@gmu.edu

Police Quarterly

2017, Vol. 20(2) 135–163

!The Author(s) 2016

Reprints and permissions:

sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav

DOI: 10.1177/1098611116667279

journals.sagepub.com/home/pqx

technology is seen as a means to increase an organization’s technical efficiency,

defined as maximizing outputs using the lowest cost, time, and resources possible

(see Rutgers & van der Meer, 2010; see also McGowan, 1984a). For example,

police adopted license plate readers to detect stolen vehicles because the readers

could enable them to automatically scan hundreds of vehicle license plates in

minutes, as opposed to manually entering selected plates into computer data-

bases one-by-one. Computerized records management systems replaced the hand

reporting, shelving, and analysis of paper police reports so that information

could be more easily searched, retrieved, and analyzed. Police cars and radios

were purchased so officers could react to citizen 9-1-1 calls more quickly.

However, aside from technology making the police more technically efficient,

technology is also thought to improve the outcome effectiveness of the police.

Although arguably a complementary component to efficiency (see Hatry, 1978,

2014), outcome effectiveness is distinguished from efficiency in the public admin-

istration literature by its emphasis on achieving specific outcomes (see, e.g.,

Goodman & Penning, 1977; Quinn & Rohrbaugh, 1981; Rutgers & van der

Meer, 2010). In policing, for example, technology is believed to improve the

ability of police to identify and monitor offenders or bolster evidence collection

to resolve cases. Information technologies help facilitate the identification of hot

places and people to target them for crime prevention with the goal of reducing

crime and recidivism. Agencies have also acquired new social media technologies

to enhance communication between themselves and citizens to strengthen that

relationship.

One important question for policing that we explore in this article is whether

technology helps police to be more effective in achieving outcomes or whether it

primarily increases organizational efficiencies (Lum, 2010; Maguire, 2014).

Of course, efficiency and effectiveness are not zero-sum trade-offs; scholars

have long discussed the interaction between efficiency, effectiveness, and cost-

effectiveness (see, e.g., Hatry, 1978; McGowan, 1984a, 1984b). Hatry (1978,

2014) in particular has discussed the need to track performance in terms of

outcome efficiency rather than output efficiency (see Hatry, 2014, p. 21), an

idea which combines notions of technical efficiency and outcome effectiveness

in performance measurement. Nonetheless, questions about the effectiveness and

efficiency of police technology are far from settled in empirical research. Some

research as well as technical and vendor assessments assert that technologies can

make policing processes faster and easier, as illustrated by the aforementioned

license plate reader example. At the same time, research and police practice

reveal that using technology can sometimes reduce efficiency and may not help

achieve outcomes such as the prevention or reduction of crime or the improve-

ment of citizen trust, confidence, and satisfaction with the police.

The difficulty in linking technological advances in policing with outcomes

such as crime prevention, improved community relations, or accountability

may have several causes. Independently, technology does not create outcomes

136 Police Quarterly 20(2)