Policing as a performing art? The contradictory nature of contemporary police performance management
| Author | Jacques de Maillard,Stephen P Savage |
| DOI | 10.1177/1748895817718589 |
| Published date | 01 July 2018 |
| Date | 01 July 2018 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
research-article2017
Article
Criminology & Criminal Justice
2018, Vol. 18(3) 314 –331
Policing as a performing art?
© The Author(s) 2017
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https://doi.org/10.1177/1748895817718589
DOI: 10.1177/1748895817718589
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of contemporary police
performance management
Jacques de Maillard
University of Versailles-CESDIP, France
Stephen P Savage
University of Portsmouth, UK
Abstract
Performance management in criminal justice organizations has become a prominent issue in many
countries and has faced increasing criticisms by scholars and practitioners. In this regard it is
important to examine empirically how performance frameworks work concretely. We do so
through the empirical examination of ‘performance regimes’, that is, the sets of performance
indicators, internal procedures, instruments and processes of internal accountability through
which performance is defined, assessed and monitored work in police organizations. By using
the categories of traditional (target-based, top–down and short-term) and advanced (processes,
more deliberative and creative and long-term) performance regimes, we have charted a process
of evolution illustrated by the experience of two police forces in England. We argue that police
performance management is a contradictory and hybrid process containing elements of both
traditional and advanced regimes and in constant flux between them. Problem-solving and a focus
on the quality of processes coexist with cascading pressures, an emphasis on numerical targets
and other features of more traditional regimes.
Keywords
Performance management, police culture, police organization, policing
Corresponding author:
Stephen P Savage, Institute of Criminal Justice Studies, University of Portsmouth, Museum Road,
Portsmouth, PO1 2QQ, UK.
Email: steve.savage@port.ac.uk
de Maillard and Savage
315
Introduction
It is widely recognized that criminal justice organizations across the world are steered,
monitored and assessed through a more or less complex variety of performance indica-
tors reflecting three broad forces: political pressures to reduce crime and deliver econo-
mies; neo-managerial thinking favouring the detailed measurement of performance; and
technological change facilitating the retrieval of data relating to performance. More spe-
cifically regarding policing, much has been written about the consequences of perfor-
mance measurement and management, and in particular the impact of the pursuit of
quantitative indicators of, and targets for, police performance on police actions and deci-
sion-making. In that respect four forms of consequences, essentially negative, have been
identified. First, policing becomes overly focused on measurable activities, such as crim-
inal detections, rather than other forms of problem-solving which may have no directly
measurable outcomes but which are nevertheless socially beneficial, such as ‘partnership
policing’ (for England and Wales, Beattie and Cockcroft, 2009; Crawford et al., 2005; de
Maillard and Savage, 2012; Hough, 2007; Loveday, 2006; for Australia, Fleming and
Scott, 2008). Second, the pursuit of standardized and uniform performance indicators for
policing has been associated with the rigidities of the centralization of policing through
‘top–down’ performance governance frameworks (for England and Wales, de Maillard
and Savage, 2012; Fitzgerald et al., 2002; Loveday, 2006; for the USA, Eterno and
Silverman, 2012; Sparrow, 2015; for France, de Maillard and Mouhanna, 2016). Third,
performance management has reinforced a culture of cynicism within police organiza-
tions (‘ticking boxes’), increasing the divide between managers and frontline officers
(Fitzgerald et al., 2002). Fourth, pressures to demonstrate achievement of performance
can lead to ‘juggling’ practices, such as the tactical under-recording of crimes, thus chal-
lenging police integrity (see Patrick, 2011, for Britain; de Maillard and Mouhanna, 2016,
for France; Eterno and Silverman, 2012; Sparrow, 2015, for the United States).
Interestingly, these criticisms have not been confined to the academic world. In
England (which will be the focus of this article), police chiefs, police representative bod-
ies and politicians have also raised concerns about the directions in which police perfor-
mance management has been going, particularly insofar as they relate to a rigid and
nationally led performance framework. This critical dynamic, initiated by the Labour
administration with the promise to dismantle all targets except those relating to public
confidence in the police in 2008 (McLaughlin and Fleming, 2012), culminated in the
removal of national targets altogether by the Coalition government at the beginning of
the second decade of the 21st century.1 Moreover, criticisms of narrow definitions of
police performance based on ‘crude’ indicators (such as crime and detection rates) have
led to the adoption of more sophisticated approaches of performance management based
on a broader range of indicators (process and outcomes), a better quality of data and a
deeper reliance on more sophisticated evidence (Neyroud, 2008). The College of
Policing, for instance, a professional body created in 2011, has sought to develop and
diffuse within the English police an evidence-based approach to policing. Virtually all
police forces have responded in some form to this agenda; the Metropolitan Police
Service for instance has introduced an Evidence-Based Policing programme recom-
mending the ‘use of evidence to inform better and more efficient policing in London’
316
Criminology & Criminal Justice 18(3)
(Stanko, 2012: 4). These potential changes trigger an obvious question which is at the
core of this article: have the shifts in political orientation to police performance and the
greater sophistication of performance approaches led in turn to the rise of a more
advanced police performance model in English police forces?
Following reflection on the notion of a ‘police performance regime’ and the method-
ology of the research, the article proceeds to examine the association between police
performance management (PPM) and the three dimensions of performance regime that
can be analytically distinguished as: ‘policing by numbers’; the translation downwards
through the police hierarchy; and the temporal horizon of police activities. What emerges
is a picture of PPM as uneven, both within and between police organizations, as ambiva-
lent and, in a number of respects, as fundamentally contradictory.
Analysing Regimes of Police Performance Using
Qualitative Methodology
Traditional and advanced performance regimes
Although the term ‘regime’ might imply unity and coherence, we use it to embrace vary-
ing mixes of norms, values, priorities and forms of knowledge and information (Edwards
and Hughes, 2012). Analysing performance regimes means examining sets of (more or
less related) performance indicators, and the internal procedures, instruments and pro-
cesses of internal accountability through which performance is defined, assessed and
monitored. Police performance regimes can thus be defined in terms of the interplay
between measures of police activity and how such measures are used through the various
internal organizational processes to seek to produce particular organizational effects.
Police performance regimes may vary substantially. They vary significantly between
nation states (de Maillard and Savage, 2012) and vary over time within nation states; they
can also vary between police organizations. To capture such variations, we can distinguish
analytically between ‘traditional’ and ‘advanced’ models of police performance regimes.
‘Traditional’ police performance regimes, typical of performance management in the
earlier stages of development of PPM, are characterized by:
•• A framework which prioritizes quantitative performance indicators and a central
role given to target-setting; ‘hitting targets’ as an end in itself.
•• Centrally driven organizational processes with a ‘top–down’ management style
and the ‘micro-management’ of organizational units.
•• A short-term timeframe with an emphasis on achieving targets within the perfor-
mance reporting cycle (quarterly, monthly, etc.).
The perceived shortcomings of the ‘traditional’ regime, as seen above, seem to have
been a driving factor behind the emergence of a more ‘reflective’ performance regime
that we refer to as the ‘advanced’ police performance regime, characterized by:
•• Systems of performance measurement with a greater focus on qualitative meas-
ures (without denying the significance and utility of quantitative measures as
de Maillard and Savage
317
such) and with performance targets seen increasingly as a means to an end rather
than an end in themselves, and a focus on solving the problems which differential
performance levels expose.
•• Greater flexibility and professional discretion granted to lower levels of the police
organization to seek and find solutions to performance differentials and
shortfalls.
•• A greater emphasis on long-term goals and increasing organizational effectiveness.
These analytical distinctions between traditional and advanced PPM regimes relate to
ways of thinking and behaving, cultural interpretations held within policing about which
should...
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