Introduction:
This first in a quarterly series of ‘Take-Four’ will focus on the issue of performance and leadership within a policing context. The very term performance is now synonymous with the counting of data, a clinical and rational model purposefully designed to justify to self and others, the execution of duty. The ‘numbers’ are sacrosanct and in many ways this modus operandi has been artlessly adopted as the management mantra. New Public Management is no longer new; and its questionable if it is managing any reality other than a well-orchestrated spread sheet. But what of its impact?
Take-Four takes a critical look at how this ideology impacts on organisational behaviours; the policing relationships within the political landscape; the impact that populism has on policing; and finally, its potential negative bearing on policing and community engagement (USA perspective). The steering of their own narrative within an increasingly complex social and political environment must be the priority for policing leadership. A new self-confident leadership voice is required to produce a counter narrative beyond the numbers game. The alternative is far more bleak: that policing leaders are increasingly expected to just do as they are told!
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Take-One: Images of the Real
Emerging from any period of intense crisis brings with it an occasion for organisations to reflect on conflicted activity: where have our pragmatic behaviours failed to ally with our strategic intent; where might our values have potentially misaligned with our agreed operating principles? At the same time, it also affords leaders the space and opportunity to dramatically increase positive self-enquiry: is our vision for the future still appropriate; do our values provide us with the anchor for ethical stability; is our purpose still strong and resolute? These deliberations need to be necessarily intense and ferociously honest. Policing is at this stage!
Defining good performance is a critical success factor. This is an opportunity to review the ideological frameworks within which taken-for-granted leadership attitudes and behaviours impact on the role of policing in society. In a world increasingly influenced by shallow populism with its quick wins and alternative truths, deeply reflective and challenging questions, posited by policing leaders, are necessary in order to understand the future provision of services to post-COVID communities. In particular: are the well-rehearsed leadership narratives vis-à-vis organisational performance still fit for purpose?
In policing terms, performance equates to numbers! There is a distinct inability among policing leaders to express organisational improvements without statistical verification. Wellbeing, the essence of organisational investment in people, is too frequently communicated as a reduction in sickness rates; diversity, an expression of the range of potential alternative approaches to policing impact, is regularly articulated in terms of the number of BAME employees. Worth becomes a comparative number that can be placed within a calculable league table and assessed against an other! Whilst the leadership narrative of collaboration finds its way into every competency framework, it is rates of competition that are too frequently the reality that gets rewarded. Performance equals numbers!
This exclusively rational approach to performance causes significant organisational tension. In The Protestant Ethic and The Spirit of Capitalism, Weber highlighted the difference between formal and substantive rationality: something can be at the same time formally rational in pure calculable terms, yet appear irrational from an others’ substantive viewpoint. Too frequently within policing the tension rests between the ‘numbers game’ (formal rationality) and the provision of ‘real engagement with communities’ (substantive rationality). Or, paraphrasing the French philosopher Baudrillard, we are in grave danger of creating societies where ‘the images of the real are far more important than the real itself’. Reality equals numbers and operational officers and staff feel the tense impact!
The justification for this purely rational approach is well-articulated, it is known as the HMICFRS defence: ‘the numbers are how policing performance is publicly adjudged’. And when an inspectorate behaves more like a regulator it is to some extent understandable as to why aspects of policing leadership drops down to a management mindset and settles for a conciliatory approach.
Yet, this is the moment when policing leadership needs to find and own a new, alternative and more self-assured narrative regarding performance. Like never before, those entrusted with shaping the future direction of the service need to be far more than managerially competent. Why? Because there is significant potential for the performance of policing to be disproportionately politically centralised; indeed, it is already happening.
Policing leadership needs to be capable of transcending beyond the arrival of a more robust second wave of purely calculable governmental rationalisation.
References:
Weber, M (1958) The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. New York, Scribner.
Baudrillard, J (1994) Simulacra and Simulation. Michigan, University of Michigan Press.
Dr Mark Kilgallon
Take-Two: Back to the Future?
In 2019 Boris Johnson replaced Theresa May as Leader of the Conservative Party and immediately embarked on a strategy which for the police service entirely reversed the policy position of his predecessor. Adopting an overtly populist approach Johnson’s primary purpose has been to recalibrate his government’s position on the police and to resurrect its more traditional commitment to ‘law and order’ last propounded in the days of Prime Ministers Thatcher and Major. In doing so any earlier interest in ‘evidence based’ policing has now been officially abandoned. Further, any rational and planned response to policing current crime challenges has also ended as performance management has made an unfortunate and ill- timed re-appearance.
The first major change has been the decision to reverse cuts to police numbers initiated by Theresa may as Home Secretary on the basis that it was not police numbers that made police more effective but how police establishment was used. Although to date police numbers still remain below that which obtained in 2010 the aim is to make up for the 20,000 officers lost under the Austerity strategy of Osborne and Cameron. This may prove to be the only policy initiative that will generate both professional support and public consensus.
Stop and Search [again?]
Elsewhere and as significant has been a decision by government to provide all police officers with wider stop and search powers under Section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act [1994]. This appears to be at variance with most recent research which suggests the very limited impact of this power on criminal activity. It also contradicts recent observations from HMICFRS* [2021] that use of this power in relation to possession of drugs rarely worked and appeared to be used disproportionately based on ethnicity. It did however reflect a commitment on the part of the Home Secretary to the innate symbolism and public sentiment that stop and search generates within the popular press and among the most ardent supporters of the current government.
In fact, it only followed on from an equally questionable internal decision within the MPS to develop plans for armed police street patrols with ‘guns visible and ready to use’ as an effective strategy to reduce knife crime and violent gangs in London. This may well have resonated with a Home Secretary [Priti Patel] whose primary sense of direction appears to be closely linked to the expansion and wider use of police enforcement powers.
Resurrection of Performance Management
Along with this has been an equally concerning decision to fully resurrect an official commitment to performance management and associated targets. These are likely to become universal as ‘measured activity’ once again is seen as a primary determinant of police effectiveness. Yet as the recent HMICFRS Report* [2020], on Greater Manchester Police crime recording practices, has demonstrated ‘ethical recording’ of crime data continues to elude many police forces. As a problem this can be expected to increase ‘gaming’ the figures becomes a port of first resort to enable forces to hit their targets. Yet official interest in public standards and ethical issues may be currently in abeyance with a Prime Minister recently described as an ‘inveterate liar’ and someone who ‘uses lies to embellish reality, as a game and as an instrument of power’ and who has no rules ‘but who does, nonetheless, believe that ‘the ends justify the means’’ [Bermann 2021].
Executive Determination of Police Priorities
This particular Prime Ministerial characteristic was to be reflected in an earlier decision to establish a National Policing Board [NPB] intended to determine policing strategy on a national basis using future increases in police establishments as a direct instrument in influencing policing priorities. But as Johnson stated at the first meeting of the NPB ‘I am a Prime Minister who backs our police all the way and I am going to give them the resources and the confidence they need to get the job done’.
What form the ‘job’ might take was not identified but the reappearance of performance targets suggest that crime rates can be expected to loom large in future. Here it might be recalled the very same challenge of crime levels was to ultimately lead to the Sheehy Inquiry in an earlier reprisal of a Conservative government’s solution to improving police effectiveness.
As with Donald Trump’s American example of authoritarian populism, the police service can be easily used as a focal point for the implementation [and defence] of extremist policies. And while Johnson as a perceived ‘shape shifter and junior clone of Trump’ may not exhibit the more extreme forms of populist rhetoric exhibited by President Trump there must be an assumption that law enforcement rather than enlightenment will characterise this governments response to both crime and the crisis of inequality that the Covid pandemic has revealed. Indeed, as in the past, Chief officers may, in trying to divine future Home Office policy, be better informed by editorials in the Daily Mail and other popular media outlets than either police professional judgement or data derived from more informed and independent sources.
References:
Bermann S [2021] Goodbye Britannia, The Times, 27th February;
Grierson J [2021] A dangerous Precedent. Decision gives complete discretion to Home Secretary;
HMIFRS [2021] Disproportionate use of police powers. A spotlight on stop and search and the use of force;
HMIFRS [2020] Greater Manchester Inspection Report;
Barry Loveday
Take-Three: Politics, populism and policing
Policing is once again under the spotlight and scholars have been reflecting critically in recent months on the extent to which the growth of populist politics has impacted law enforcement. The Washington Post on 10th January, 2021reported that several serving police officers faced dismissal, suspension or other forms of discipline for their involvement in, or proximity to, the Capitol riot in Washington on January 6th, 2021. Sadly, this is not surprising, as there is evidence that white supremacist groups have infiltrated American police forces across the US and is widespread (The Guardian Newspaper, 27th August,2020). While nothing of that magnitude has occurred in the UK, there is little doubt, judging from the twitter feeds of some serving and former officers, that British police are not immune from alt right populism. The Independent Newspaper on 5th March, 2020, reported that a young London police officer had been arrested for belonging to a proscribed organisation associated with right wing terrorism. These are clearly worrying developments and they will cause considerable anxiety to all liberal democracies and senior police leaders.
Lacey (Populism and the rule of law, 2019) notes that populism has created significant risks to the rule of law in the UK and elsewhere, through ‘agenda-setting, policy impact, the shaping of discretionary decisions and convention-trashing.’ Lacey is just one of many scholars drawing attention to the impact of populism on law and order. Nigel Farage, through his populist, nativist agenda was able to stir up anger with political elites, generate a distrust of experts and create a dangerous hostility towards migrants. The Presidency of Donald Trump has evidenced populist politics at its worst. The British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson is also acknowledged widely as a right wing populist (The Financial Times, 7th January, 2020).
Professor Robert Reiner, a leading policing academic, argues that policing is inherently political. This is inevitable, even though the police are supposed to be non-partisan and governed by the rule of law. However, policing reflects the ideals and standpoints of the governing political party. The distribution of this power benefits some more than others (The Police Foundation, 2009). Brogden and Ellison (Policing Austerity, 2012) take this even further by arguing that UK policing is, and has always been, partisan, asserting that it has consistently been committed to the maintenance of a divisive social order. They further argue that the controversial introduction by the Tory led coalition government of Police and Crime Commissioners in 2012 was a cynical attempt at political populism (Bailey, 2012). More recent evidence suggests that some PCCs can pursue a populist agenda, without any effective accountability. A case study of the Surrey PCC (Bailey, 2015) found that the Police and Crime Panel was unable to hold the commissioner to account for his frequent political outbursts. Most PCCs are members of a political party, as are the majority of Police and Crime Panel members, whose role is to hold commissioners to account. In his 2017 research, Bailey found that politics could, where the PCC and his/her panel belong to the same political party, impede objective scrutiny. The case for reform of the current governance model is both strong and urgent.
Criminal justice agencies, in order to retain their objectivity and evidence based policies, must reject the division and hatred of populism. This is especially pertinent in the case of policing, although that challenge is made all the more difficult with a populist government looking for short term political gain.
References:
Bailey, R. (2013); Brogden, M. and Ellison, E. Policing in an Age of Austerity. A Postcolonial Perspective. Policing 2013; 7 (3): 340-341. doi: 10.1093/police/pas060
Bailey, R. (2015). Policing the Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs): An examination of the current statutory and political frameworks for holding PCCs to account – a case study of the Surrey Police and Crime Panel. Policing: A journal of Policy and Practice 9(4) 305 – 313 doi: 10.1093/police/pav022
Dr Roy Bailey
Take-Four: Reality Versus Perception
CompStat today – aligning metrics to the perceived impact on crime
Whether in the UK or the US, the effectiveness of policing is judged through the lens of performance metrics. The challenge in basing legislative and policy decisions on such measures is the lack of collaboration between law enforcement and those being policed in determining what performance success looks like. During the mayoral reign on former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, his no tolerance approach to crime may have reduced crime overall, but certain communities might argue that they were disparately impacted by what could be described as “excessive” policing during that time period. The indiscriminate use of the “stop and frisk” policy was applied disproportionately against minorities and adherents of certain religious affiliations than representatives of majority segments of the city’s population. Crime may have been reduced and Times Square reinvented, but at what cost to communities being policed?
Gauging policing performance through statistics has provided an historical focus on the effectiveness of tactics in addressing crime in a community, a state, or a nation. The numbers are used by police leaders to focus strategy with a mind toward proactive law enforcement. Although crime stats can be indicative of policing success against myriad crime problems, the numbers don’t capture the “soft elements” associated with a sometimes overly rosy picture of the impact of policing on its practitioners, communities, or perpetrators of criminal activity.
In 1994, CompStat became the gold standard for measuring policing impact and effectiveness in the United States and was seen as the path not only to reducing crime but as a proactive tool to prevent crime from occurring in the first place. From 1994 through much of the first two decades of the 21st Century, CompStat was at the forefront of a precipitous drop in U.S. criminal activity. What the statistics didn’t capture was the extent to which crime control tactics were magnifying a fear and mistrust within policed communities. Mass protests in 2020 focused on the excessive use of force by police in the aftermath of several high-profile police shootings of African Americans. The protests by policed communities could be interpreted as the manifestation of a lack of community involvement in crafting the framework of the nation’s policing and crime control tactics.
Throughout the late 1990s and the initial decades of the 2000s, US violent crime rates plunged 49% according to statistics compiled and reported by the FBI. Property crimes fell at a similar rate of 55% over the same period. According to a 2020 Pew Research Organization article on crime statistics, the reality of falling rates of crime from 1993 – 2019 did not translate into a public perception of increased safety. In fact, quite the opposite was found. Gallup Organization polling during that period revealed public perception of crime increasing actually rose from 47% to 78%. It could be reasoned that community policing efforts have not closed a perception gap between police agencies’ data focused approach to crime prevention and the very real impact of criminal activity within communities being served.
The much-needed reform of policing in today’s populist environment will require multi-layered collaboration between the profession’s practitioners and impacted community stakeholders. “CompStat 2.0” as titled in a 2018 study by the Vera Institute of Justice and the Police Foundation suggests that more meaningful statistical measurements can only be realised through the inclusion of metrics related to the communities being served. The comprehensive statics gathered under such a strategic shift will serve both policing and the public with more inclusive data by which legislation, policy, tactics, and resources can be targeted to comprehend and better predictively address criminal activity.
References:
Gramlich, J. (2020, November 23). What the data says (and doesn’t say) about crime in the United States. Retrieved March 02, 2021, from https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/11/20/facts-about-crime-in-the-u-s/
Shah, S., Burch, J., & Neusteter, S. R. (n.d.). Leveraging CompStat to Include Community Measures in Police Performance Management. Retrieved March 02, 2021, from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326573735_Compstat_20_A_Community-Centered_Performance_Management_System
Dana Gillis
In Conclusion
The leadership of policing is complex, highly political and evidences a continuous struggle to land an appropriate service within often competing, legitimate agendas. In a post-Covid environment, the role of policing needs to be clearly understood, negotiated and agreed by both self-confident and self-aware policing practitioners and democratically elected governments. This is a difficult balancing act!
There are current danger signs that a return to a purely mechanical model of counting success is beginning to re-emerge in a manner that is increasingly centralised and disproportionately open to the vagaries of national and local politicians. The requirement for a qualitative counter narrative around policing performance has never been more necessary. It is vital that the future focus of policing seeks to protect increasingly vulnerable communities; gets beyond the noise of populist causes with their self-interested and self-centred agendas; negotiates an independent space within the hue of government; and ultimately articulates policing-worth in a manner that transcends beyond mere spreadsheet accounting.