Performance Appraisal if I Were

Performance Appraisal If I were Sergeant Thompson, I would conduct the officers' performance appraisals in a manner calculated to show whether or not the officers are complying with the expectations placed on them by the new chief of police. The new police chief has emphasized the concept of community policing, which means that any evaluation would need to focus on whether or not the officers have embraced the community policing concept.

In addition, the new police chief has instituted programs aimed at professionalizing the police department, which encourage officers to seek additional education, and specialized training. Therefore, any appraisals should demonstrate how the officers have responded to the chief's modernization of the police force. Because it concentrated on crime rates, the very nature of the appraisal system traditionally used by Sergeant Thompson's police force meant that effective officers in a community policing system would be penalized for strong performance.

However, Thompson is aware that the apparent rise in crime rates is due to improved relations between the police force and the community, which have made it more likely for people to report minor crimes. Therefore, instead of concentrating on the number of minor crimes reported, Thompson should evaluate the officers on the percentage of reported minor crimes that are cleared by the officers.

In addition, because major crimes, such as murder, are reported regardless of the community's faith in the law enforcement community, Thompson should develop an evaluation system that reflects how the officers have ushered in lower major-crime rates.

If I were Thompson, the changes that I would make that would reflect the true performance of the officers include departing from an emphasis on the rate of minor crimes, concentrating on the percentage of cases cleared by the police officers, and whether the police have been able to drive down the rates of violent crime in the community. In addition, I would make sure that the officers were rewarded for moving towards a community policing environment.

Therefore, officers would be evaluated as individuals and not merely as part of a unit. One of the most controversial things that Thompson should do is to include subjective measures as part of the officer's evaluation. An officer can be very competent from an objective point-of-view, yet still fail to inspire confidence and trust in the community. Therefore, part of the officer evaluation should involve discussing the officer's crime-investigation technique with three randomly-chosen victims of cleared crimes and three randomly-chosen victims of uncleared crimes.

In addition, Thompson should conduct "ride-alongs" with her officers, so that she can witness how they interact with those people they are policing. Finally, how an officer treats suspected criminals should be considered part of the evaluation procedure; therefore, whether any suspects have lodged complaints of violence or harassment against the officer should be considered part of any evaluation. Of course, while it is important that an officer be able to inspire confidence in the community, it is also very important for an officer to be able to solve crimes.

Therefore, part of the evaluation process should look at the percentage of crimes that an officer is able to clear. In addition, deterrence is a major goal of community policing. While one would expect a temporary upswing in minor crime rates at the beginning of a community policing approach, any effective appraisal system would look at whether minor crime rates eventually declined or continued to rise. There are several different types of evaluations that would provide a better measure of individual and group performance than traditional performance appraisals.

The first type of evaluation is a group evaluation and looks at the long-term changes in crime and crime rates. The primary goal of deterrence is to deter major, violent crime; because those rates have declined, an appraisal that focuses on major crimes would be more favorable to Thompson's officers. In addition, a good community police force should establish the type of neighborhood presence that eventually results in an overall decline in the crime rate.

Because sufficient time has not passed for this to occur, Thompson should not use the overall crime rate to evaluate her officers. However, she should incorporate the overall crime rate into her officer's evaluation as a way of establishing a baseline for future evaluations. Even more important than community performance is how an individual officer responds to a situation. The very nature of police work makes it very difficult to objectively observe officers, because police.