Results‐based agreements for the police in The Netherlands

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this article is to present the findings of research into the impact of a new performance system for the police in The Netherlands.Design/methodology/approachFor this research, the international literature about the effects and side effects of performance steering in the public sector was scanned and more than 150 local stakeholders in five Dutch police regions were interviewed in semi‐open interviews, using a checklist. The study analyzed the specific impact of the results‐based agreements in various branches.FindingsOn the whole, the police do not get isolated as a consequence of the results‐based agreements and they do not disassociate themselves from the societal networks they participated in before. The authors offer several explanations why many of the expected negative effects have not occurred.Originality/valueValuable in this article is the focus on the situational context and the implementation context for an adequate assessment of the significance of performance‐based steering of the police in practice. It gives an update of the Dutch state of affairs and recommends another starting point for police performance measurement in the near future.

Can Performance Management Best Practices Help Reduce Crime?

“…Performance management systems are now wellestablished concepts that are increasingly being adopted by police agencies in the United States and abroad (Van Sluis, Cachet, and Ringeling 2008).…”

Towards a standard conceptual typology of public sector performance measurement

“…Practices akin to performance measurement, such as 'management by numbers', have existed for centuries (Poister & Streib 1999;Hood 2007), but the recent increase in the importance of the field in the Western world can largely be traced to the 1980s and 1990s (Carter et al 1992;Schick 1996;Fleming & Lafferty 2000;Proppers & Wilson 2003). Performance measurement was seen as a mechanism whereby advocates of a new style of public service-often termed new public management, or NPM-could push what were seen as slow-moving, inefficient and overly bureaucratic organisations towards a more corporate model that would theoretically deliver better value for money (Cope et al 1997;van Sluis et al 2008;McAdam et al 2011;Lewis 2015). Since then, performance measurement has been implemented in many different countries, in almost all areas of the public sector (Johnsen 2005;Van Dooren et al 2010).…”

Criminal justice as a production line: ASAP and the managerialization of criminal justice in the Netherlands

“…From the early 1990s, this process of managerialization has also occurred in the police and the criminal justice system, initially especially in the Anglo-Saxon countries, and often somewhat later than in other public sectors (Freiberg, 2005; McLaughlin and Muncie, 2000; McLaughlin and Murji, 2001; McLaughlin et al, 2001; Painter, 2005; Raine and Wilson, 1997; Senior et al, 2007). In the following years, the police and criminal justice agencies in some of the continental West European countries were also increasingly affected by these processes of managerialization, although its impact often remained relatively modest compared with most of the Anglo-Saxon countries (Beyens and Scheirs, 2010; Lange and Schenk, 2003, 2004; Ritsert and Pekar, 2009; Terpstra and Trommel, 2009; Van Sluis et al, 2008).…”