Search for alternative evaluation criteria of law enforcement agencies’ activities in combating crime

Abstract

The authors have studied existing problems of using current and implemented the search of new evaluation criteria of the police activities while investigating and solving crimes in different periods of development of our country.

It has been emphasized that the efficiency of the functioning of operating units of internal affairs agencies (National Police) directly depends not only on what tasks will be assigned to the relevant departments, but also on using the criteria that will evaluate the quality of work. Due to this fact, the system of evaluating the efficiency must be flexible and should be changed, as public safety and the effectiveness of law enforcement agencies depends on how the police work is estimated.

The authors of the article have analyzed the methods of evaluation of the police operational units in various stages of the functioning, the influence of objective and subjective factors on its objectivity and accuracy, the search of new evaluation criteria. Based on available statistics for the period of 1960–2015 the authors made an attempt to identify issues related to the accounting of solved and unsolved crimes, have considered the feasibility of using these categories to measure the police activities and effectiveness of using new evaluation criteria that are based on the latest information technologies.

The paper includes the system and structural analysis of indicators of solving crimes and other (alternative) criteria for the evaluation of internal affairs agencies’ activities on detection and investigation of crimes and selective comparison of existing criteria for evaluating the police work of some EU countries.

The relevance of this paper during the reform period of law enforcement system is due to its focus on the optimization of the activities of the units of the National Police of Ukraine on detection and investigation of crimes, on the implementation of new evaluation criteria in practice, first of all using public opinion poll that will quickly take necessary management decisions.