Societal-Based Performance Measures Development

MEMORANDUM

TO: Office of Management and Budget (OMB)

SUBJECT: Societal-Based Performance Measures Development

DATE: April 4, 2017

This is an update to the memorandum of February 28, 2015. At that time, the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) provided the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) a strategy to include societal-based performance measures as part of its grant management program. This action prompted OMB’s review of the COPS Application Package in April of 2014 and the subsequent Terms of Conditions (TOC) of that approval.

This memorandum reaffirms the COPS Office’s intent of implementing societal-based performance measures that demonstrate the impact of our work. The purpose of the COPS Office is to enact organizational change to facilitate the institutionalization of community policing in law enforcement agencies (proximal outcomes), which in turn produces broader benefits such as reductions in crime and social disorder (distal outcomes). It is our opinion that the most relevant public safety outcomes that are measured on an on-going systematic basis across a wide number of jurisdictions are those associated with reported crimes. In addition, COPS hiring grants have been the primary vehicle by which the Office has incentivized and enacted organizational changes toward community policing¹. Because of this, we are interested in the extent to which COPS Office hiring grants in particular have resulted in increases in sworn force size and reduction in crime. Thus, our performance measure will focus on COPS Office hiring grants and the link between their primary output of producing increases in community policing sworn force levels and with crime reduction.

Research Question:

To what extent do COPS Office hiring grants affect sworn force levels, property and violent crime rates? Findings will be captured as an average percent impact across grantees and fiscal years. 

Method:

The COPS Office will conduct an on-going regression discontinuity design that builds on the Princeton University study (attached) that used this method.  We would work with a researcher to replicate their model in such a way that they would enable the ability to conduct this study on an on-going basis as new crime and hiring data become available. 

Approach:

• Make an award to an entity to continue to build on this dataset and statistical model.     

       The awardee would be responsible for producing an annual report.  The awardee would produce estimates to enable the COPS Office to assess the impact of the COPS Office hiring program on officer hiring; violent and property crime. We will also conduct a cost / benefit analysis. 

       Multiple reports would be produced, a technical report that provides a complete description of the methodology used to develop the estimates and a summary of findings which will provide a simplified description of the findings for other consumers.

       The initial attached study examined the effect of COPS grants awarded between 2009 and 2013.  The first report would provide more recent estimates and cover the years 2009 to 2015 and could be released by the end of calendar year 2017. The next report would include an assessment of COPS Office funding for the years 2009 to 2016, and would be released by the end of 2018.

Example of a Societal-Based Performance Measure:  

“COPS Office hiring awards produce an increase in grantee agency sworn force levels and a reduction in crime in those grantee jurisdictions, as represented by FBI UCR violent and non-violent classifications².”  The answers will be captured as an average percent impact on rate change as compared to previous year(s). 

       The associated target will be the reduction in UCR crime rates per increases in COPS funded officers.

1 Note that all COPS Office efforts, including training and technical assistance, resource development, and other non-hiring grant programs are also focused on these same goals, but make up a much smaller portion of the COPS Office overall budget.

2 The attached study estimates that cities receiving COPS hiring grant funding from 2009 to 2013 when compared to a similar sample of cities who did not receive hiring funding experienced increases in their police force levels by 3.6% and decreases in violent crime of 4.8% and property crime of 3%.