Citizen satisfaction as indicator of police effectiveness

1. Citizen satisfaction as indicator of police effectiveness Ben Vollaard CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis September 29, 2006

2. Finding out how well the police performwithout being knowledgeable about police work sickness absence citizen satisfaction response time fear of crime detection rate Do you get where you pay for?

3. Outline of presentation • Why subjective performance assessment? • How useful a performance indicator is citizen satisfaction? • Conclusions

4. Why subjective assessment?

5. Ex ante (‘objective’) vs. Ex post (‘subjective’)assessment E&W NL ex post ex ante Define ‘good performance’ ex ante, rule-based, no room for subjective judgment Subjective assessment ex post, incl. customer satisfaction/ professional judgment • choice differs between police tasks

6. England & Wales vs. the Netherlands: two styles of performance assessment • English approach: mostly subjective (incl. citizen satisfaction and professional judgment), no overall judgment, comparative • Dutch approach: mostly objective, overall judgment, force-specific

7. 3. How useful a performance indicator is citizen satisfaction?

8. Citizen satisfaction: advantages • Link between broad set of (hard-to-observe) police actions and safety • ‘The police react on problems in the neighbourhood’ • Information on specific hard-to-observe dimensions of police work • ‘The police don’t intervene sufficiently aggressive’

9. Reliability of citizens' perceptions • Do citizens have any idea of police work? • Patterns in perceived police performance correspond with anecdotal evidence (overall performance) and police data (police fining) • Aren’t citizens’ responses biased by the local safety situation? • Across municipalities: judgment in (low-crime) rural areas just as likely to be negative as in (high-crime) urban areas • Over time: 1993-2003, declining crime; growing dissatisfaction with police work

10. NL: matching two local policing strategies with survey questions • Disorder policing: dissatisfaction with lack of ‘proactive’/ aggressive police intervention • Hot spots policing: is the police visible in those places where people appreciate it most? ‘See police too little’ ‘See police once a week’

11. Relation between perceived disorder and hot spots policing and safety • Crime and disorder go down more rapidly in municipalities that follow a pro-active approach to policing • Tougher, more targeted policing during 2003-2005 reduced disorder by 5%, property crime by 3%, violent crime by 2% • Might be underestimation because of simultaneity that has not been controlled for

12. Conclusion

13. Do we get ‘value for money’? • Ask ‘customers’; subjective evaluation of police strategies and how they contribute to safety • Citizen satisfaction provides meaningful information on local policing • Relation between citizen satisfaction with police work and local safety • Citizen satisfaction is a useful performance indicator for police tasks visible to the public • BCS citizen satisfaction questions currently very limited

14. Dutch Victimisation Survey vs. British Crime Survey (◄) • Set of questions about police contact of victims of crime ◄ • ‘The police do a good job’ ◄ • ‘The police react on problems in the neighbourhood’ ! • ‘The police do not intervene sufficiently forcefully’ ! • ‘The police are too little visible’ ! • ‘See the police at least once a week’ ! • ‘The police offer protection’ • ‘The police fine too little’ • ‘The police do not arrive quickly when called’ • ‘The police get out of the car too little’ • ‘The police have too little time for all kinds of things’ • ‘The police maintain contact with people in the n’hood’ • ‘The police are too little approachable’ • ‘The police address problems efficiently’