Assessing the Police

[davidbfpo]

My initial reaction was whether evidence-gathering and public service for example after a natural disaster or a dam burst (as recently predicted in Iraq). Counting equipment and base facilities might be easy, whether it enables an operational assessment is very moot. Then what do the units understand their role to be, notably their relationship to the local population?

Can individual personnel and leaders be assessed using exercises? From the simplest officer selection tests and promotion. Is any testing possible, as a team or individuals? Mobilization testing comes to mind and simple, but often difficult tasks like vehicle checkpoints, arrest and search operations.

I have - for now - ignored the barriers posed by language, local culture and history. Somehow I expect policing in Iraq has not paid much attention to the public compared to the national / local government. Let alone corruption.

[Red Rat]

John,

Thanks for your comments. I am not a Law Enforcement professional, so I found them insightful and certainly food for some follow up work.

When a unit attends the National Training Center, 29 Palms or the like then the Observer Controllers have a checklist that they can work down that covers the spectrum of Personnel (right numbers, ranks and specialties in the right posts) Equipment (have they the right kit in the right place) and Training (have they done the requisite individual courses for their roles, and mandated build-up training. At the end they have a pretty good feel for where the unit is at the start of training.

In Iraq and Afghanistan we often had similar check lists for mentors to assist them in evaluating their units. From a military perspective this is all fairly straight forward. But for an Advisor turning up at a police unit or station, what should be on his checklist?

David,
The check list is very much focused at the low tactical level, and there are various schemes in the pipeline that may start working at the operational level. I can extrapolate from my military checklist how likely a unit is going to perform and also see easily what it is incapable of doing. I would like to be able to generate something similar for the police.

I suppose the simple question would be what would a policeman look for if he was assessing a unit? Arrest logs? I like the idea of an assessment exercise.

[davidbfpo]

Red Rat,

You may find this closed thread helps, particularly the adaption used by Massachusetts State Police SF veterans back home in gang-ridden locations:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=5424

On a quick read it is conceptual and does not provide the tools you seek.

[davidbfpo]

From a ret'd military "lurker":

My thoughts are:
1. Is this assessment at the tactical, operational or strategic levels? I suspect tactical/operational (i.e. ‘in the field’).
2. Identifying the team role is critical – investigation, pro-active, patrol / response or community policing?
3. Don’t look at the problem purely from the police objectives angle but involve the public to ascertain their perceptions – what do they want their police force to do? The alternative is to consider the police in a quasi-military role.
4. How do the police and military separate their roles/cooperate/coordinate?
5. Operational/decision-making can be assessed with a combination of ‘table-top’ scenarios where a moderator poses increasingly complex problems and encourage the team to find a solution (involve police, local population, media, political and NGOs to provide perspective and different views). The aim is that the police discover performance solutions. Not strictly an assessment but it might provide the basis on which tactical/team level assessment is made.
6. At individual/team level, creating small exercises of typical situations will elicit performance but the measurement model depends on agreed performance metrics.

I would have thought the UK College of Policing has these: performance metrics for individuals and small teams.


Or is your colleague seeking some way of assessing whether his policing colleagues are teaching/assessing appropriately! As the advice and assist teams leader, he may need that confidence by having something to compare it against.

[davidbfpo]

Another "lurker" added:

Need to differentiate between measures of activity, measures of performance, measures of efficiency and measures of effectiveness. He needs to make sure that he is actually using measures of effectiveness, and not some form of surrogate which actually measures (eg) activity or performance.

[davidbfpo]

From a UK police "lurker":

Not quite sure how to start with this one.. I could write a book on it.


Without oversimplifying a complex assessment process:


1. What are they (the units being assessed trying to achieve - what does success look like?
2. Understand their crude inputs to the system.. numbers of staff; budgets etc.
3. Gain a more sophisticated assessment of inputs.. what do staff think of their leaders etc. (perhaps too radical a suggestion?!?)
4. Establish some actual or proxy measures to assess current success which might include crude outputs such as arrests; detections; recorded crime and incidents etc.
5. Add some qualitative measures to look at outcomes.. how big is their murder; drugs; corruption problem etc.


Some of the above may be a big ask for Iraq.. but you have to start somewhere I guess.

[davidbfpo]

From a "lurker" with a long time serving in a para-military police service and only the summary is cited below:

Summary:

a) Instructions, standing orders, SOPs, shared maps, call signs and structure.
b) Command and Control which puts (a) into practice.
c) Training.
d) Exercises and wash ups.
e) Working together whenever possible and operate as joint units e.g. dogs, EOD, catering etc.

Much can be gained from:
 Checking Orders etc (in Arabic so difficult)
 Interviewing people on and off the record – they will know the problems! Do people follow the instruction and orders? Remember talk to the "Indians" not the bosses. They will make suggestions. I used to start with the boss and work downwards, increasing the number at each rank that you speak with.
 Look at Command and Control structure, you could find improvements. TEWTs, training?
 Deployment of resources – because it is simple most people go for fixed deployment – I would always push for about 50% flexible.
 Surveillance, a vital element in most aspects. Technology, cameras etc. We used everything we could get hold of, the simpler the better.
 Training, both tactical at unit and on an individual basis.
 Discipline?