More on the stupidity of outcome based targets here. This paragraph is particularly telling: The first perverse consequence was that although the public expected the police to keep the peace, an officer who successfully stopped trouble was not rewarded because no trouble meant no arrests. More seriously, the police played the Home Office game by going for trivial offenders rather than serious criminals. Solving the case of a child who steals a Mars bar earned as many points as solving a murder. It made more sense to arrest rowdy children for 'harassing a tree' than to begin the hard work of tackling a potentially homicidal teenage gang. You get what you measure.
« Reason or rationality? | Main | Understand HOW does not mean we comprehend WHAT or WHY »
Comments (3)
And, on a related note:
... Chris Sims, Chief Constable of Staffordshire, said that he had been alarmed by the large gap between his force’s high ranking in government tables and the public’s disappointment with street-level policing.
“We had reached the point in policing where targets had become an end in themselves,” he said. “Yes, performance is important but the pendulum had swung a bit too far and we became obsessed with numbers rather than delivering good policing.
“I expect to drop down the league tables because I am no longer chasing every one of the dozens of performance measurements. But the only league table that really counts is what the people in my area think of their police force.”
From The Times
May 31, 2008
"Top police boycott official paperwork"
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article4036339.ece
Posted by Keith Fortowsky | June 2, 2008 10:34 PM
Posted on June 2, 2008 22:34
And yet, when we were subjected to sustained campaign of harassment and intimidation in our last house (regularly having to dash indoors to avoid a hail of rocks being hurled by the neighbouring kids), no action was taken.
I lost count of the number of times I phoned the police in fear for, well, maybe not life, but certainly limb, and even more certainly property. The only time they came was when my son was punched in the face by a passing cyclist.
As long as no-one was actually hurt, they wouldn't come - even if that meant that we were unable to make use of our own garden. The dents in my car where the rocks hit seemed not to have constituted enough damage to warrant a visit.
I suspect that there was a file on their system that indicated the number of times I had called, and I was simply labelled a whinger.
Posted by Karyn Romeis | June 3, 2008 11:26 AM
Posted on June 3, 2008 11:26
"Harassing a tree" ? Sounds like another paradox to ponder on with pipe. Trees as sentient beings capable of being harassed....discuss.
Posted by Cheryl | June 4, 2008 11:46 AM
Posted on June 4, 2008 11:46