From a "lurker" who is an international police trainer, not in the MENA:
So I would suggest that police performance could be focused around perhaps five or six key priorities with performance measures designed to reflect operating success under these headings. First and foremost should probably be compliance with national and international human rights standards.

A suggested list might look something like this:



  1. Compliance with national and international standards in human rights. (Measures could be number of reports of excessive use of force, fatalities or injuries caused, complaints of human rights abuses received, complaints received from minority communities, NGOs, third sector organisations or international monitors.)
  2. Impact on public safety and community security (Measures could include indicators of normal civic life such as number of shops and stalls open, people abroad in daylight hours and at night, number of pupils in school, ability of local government and infrastructure to function etc, as well as more obvious indicators such as number of murders, terrorist attacks, kidnappings, public protests and so on.)
  3. Visibility in local communities (Measures to include number of visible police patrols (foot and mobile), number of police/public encounters, number of uniformed officers present on the street over a 24hr period, number of uniformed officers available for immediate deployment, response times to emergency calls or critical incidents.)
  4. Public confidence (Measures to include, number of reports made to police, general measures of public confidence to be measured by public attitude surveys and questionnaires.)
  5. Professional standards (Number of officers arrested, disciplined or dismissed each month, allegations of bribery or corruption, number of complaints against the police, number of women in the police and women in supervisory or command positions. Number of incidents resolved or dealt with effectively per month.)

I'm guessing, largely from a position of ignorance admittedly, that more conventional measures of police performance such as number of crimes recorded, detections and clear-ups are not really appropriate in an environment where basic security is still elusive.