Performance Measurement and the Criminal Justice System

Book excerpt: These four working papers present research designs for system-wide data analysis and productivity measurement for evaluation. The four papers, prepared by four working teams, are titled, "Performance Measurement and the Criminal Justice System," "A Conceptual Basis for Effectiveness Measurement of Law Enforcement Activities"' "Performance Measures for Evaluation of LEAA and CJS Programs;" and "A Program of Research on Performance Measurement and Evaluation for the Criminal Justice System." Concepts covered by the papers include total social cost associated with crime and crime control, a systematic approach to determine a methodology for the measurement of law enforcement effectiveness, system-level aggregate performance measures, analysis and interpretation of criminal justice statistics, and operational performance measures. An additional topic coverage is the use of evaluation as a technical tool for better measurement and resource allocation