Police and Law Enforcement Performance Standards and Levels of Service

Contents

• Measuring Service Performance
• Community Surveys
• Community Feed Back forms
• Statistical Resources
• Sample Annual Reports
• Related MRSC Pages
  • Performance Measurement

Measuring Service Performance

• BJA Program Evaluation, Bureau of Justice Assistance Program Evaluation
• Policing for the People (), Police Foundation, by Stephen Mastrofski, (Ideas in Community Policing Papers), March 1999
• Police Levels of Service (), from Level of Service Standards - Measures for Maintaining the Quality of Community Life, MRSC Report No. 31, 1994
• Benchmarking: A Method for Achieving Superior Performance in Law Enforcement Services, National League of Cities, 1996 (Available through MRSC Library Loan)
• Officer-Per-Thousand Formulas and Other Policy Myths, by John Campbell, Joseph Brann, and David Williams, Public Management, March 2004. (Available through MRSC Library Loan)
• Performance Measures What Works (), National Criminal Justice Referral Service, OJJDP Fact Sheet, December 1998, #71
• Measuring the Performance of Police Departments, League of California Cities, City Managers Department, 1994 (Available through MRSC Library Loan)
• Measuring the  Performance of Law Enforcement Agencies, Part 1, by Edward R. Maguire, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Administration of Justice Program, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, CALEA Update No. 83, September 2003
• Measuring the Performance of Law Enforcement Agencies, Part 2, by Edward R. Maguire, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Administration of Justice Program, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA , CALEA Update No. 84, February 2004
• Measuring What Matters Part One: Measures of Crime, Fear, and Disorder, Community Policing Consortium, by Thomas V. Brady, National Institute of Justice Research in Action NCJ, December 1996
• Measuring What Matters Part Two: Developing Measures of What the Police Do (), National Criminal Justice Referral Service, National Institute of Justice, Research in Action, NCJ 167255, November 1997
• Misrepresentation of Staffing Standards for Police, by  David N. Ammons and Joshua S. Edwards, State and Local Government Review, Vol. 40, No. 3, 2008 (Available through MRSC Library Loan)
• Service Standards in the Colorado Springs Police Department, Luis Velez, Chief of Police and Thomas Paine, Planning Manager, CALEA Update No. 83, October 2002
• Toward Development of Meaningful and Effective Performance Evaluations, by Robert Trojanowicz Director National Center for Community Policing and Bonnie Bucqueroux Associate Director National Center for Community Policing. National Center for Community Policing, Michigan State University, 1992

Community Surveys

• Conducting Community Surveys: A Practical Guide for Law Enforcement Agencies, U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, NCJ 178246, October 1999
• A Police Guide to Surveying Citizens and Their Environment (), National Criminal Justice Referral Service, Bureau of Justice Assistance Monograph, October 1993
• Police Department Community Survey (), RCPTI Online, by David L. Carter, Michigan State University via Regional Community Policing Institute, Wichita State University. This is a model survey containing questions which may be useful to understanding issues and concerns within the community. Since this is a model survey, it is recommended that questions be used as guidelines only. Relevant questions can be selected out of the survey and modified as necessary to best apply to your community.
• Vancouver, Washington Police Department Annual Report Card Survey

Law Enforcement Community Feedback Forms

• DuPont Citizen Police Comment Form
• Olympia Comment on Service
• Seattle OPA - Commendation/Complaint Form
• Sequim Police Survey and Comment Form

Statistical Resources

Caution should be exercised when using statistics for comparative service measures. There are no state standards for levels of service for law enforcement. Service levels are generally a local policy decision. Second, there are many variables for each community including physical and social characteristics. The security needs of one community may be very different than another.

• Crime Statistics - Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs; contains reports from 1980 to present.
• Data Collection Crime Type - Bureau of Justice Statistics 
• Data Collections: Law Enforcement - Bureau of Justice Statistics  
• Washington Population, Land Area, and Density for Cities and Towns,  See Contents Under Local Government in Washington State Data Book - Office of Financial Management
• Land Area of Washington Counties see Individual County Profiles Under Local Government in Washington State Data Book - Office of Financial Management

Sample Annual Reports

• Lynnwood Police Department Annual Reports
• Port Angeles Police Department Annual Reports
• Pullman Police Department Annual Report
• Seattle Police Department Annual Reports
• Shoreline Annual Police Service Reports
• Tukwila Police Annual Reports
• Vancouver Police Annual Report