ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on measuring and evaluating police performance as a prerequisite to police improvement. It then examines performance evaluation as it pertains to individual police officer performance, the performance of police strategies and programs, and the overall performance of the entire police organization. The chapter discusses the role of performance evaluation as well as some important issues that make the measurement of police performance particularly complex. A number of different individuals and groups need information about the quality of police performance. Measuring performance requires decisions about what to measure; this is especially so because it is virtually impossible to measure everything. The issue of quantity versus quality is closely related to the objective/subjective issue and to the tendency to measure whatever is easiest to measure. Police departments have traditionally, albeit naively, been evaluated by citizens, political leaders, and police administrators on the basis of shifts in crime rates.
