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This paper illustrates how soft systems methodology (SSM) was used in undertaking an audit of an analysis method—Micro-Analysis—for improving effectiveness and efficiency in a particular area of policing known as ‘protective services’. The authors were asked to support the Regional Project Director tasked with exploring options for collaboration between North Yorkshire Police, South Yorkshire Police, West Yorkshire Police and Humberside Police. SSM was used to develop a reference model relevant to protective services which, together with information categories for each of the SSM activities and conceptual measures of performance, was used to analyse the efficacy of Micro-Analysis by comparing and contrasting information content. The paper further explains the importance of the use of other techniques and tools to overcome the information richness and to meet the need for flexibility of data representation. Finally, the paper reflects on the deliverables and achieved outcome of the project and suggests some further application of the approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This introduction, to the following set of four papers, discusses the origins of performance indicators as used as a tool to promote police accountability. It discusses different ways of conceptualising what police officers do and how it should be measured. It describes the use of community surveys and other new ways of measuring what the police do and discusses some of the problems inherent in trying to measure performance. The paper provides some examples of how performance indicators are being used in the developed world, and then transitions to how they are being used in some developing countries as well and introduces the four case studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Candidate and Officer Personnel Survey (COPS) (Guller & Guller, 2003) was developed as a predictor of job performance in public safety candidates. Three studies were conducted to collect normative data for the COPS, to evaluate the reliability of the scales, and to investigate the concurrent validity of the instrument. Reliability coefficients were generally fair to excellent. Concurrent validity was quite good for the discrimination of promotional versus problematic officers. The results suggest the COPS's potential as a predictor of public safety officers' performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]