Metrics Management and Bureaucratic Accountability

Evidence from Policing

Datos Bibliográficos

ID6231189
AutoresLaurel Eckhouse (0000-0002-4700-2367, University of Denver, autor de correspondencia)
Año2022
Volumen66
Número2
Páginas385-401
Fecha de publicación2022-04-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaAmerican Journal of Political Science (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0092-5853 • E-ISSN: 1540-5907
EditorialWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/ajps.12661
OpenAlexW3204743390
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas18
Referencias citadas42

Bureaucracies increasingly use quantitative measures to monitor personnel behavior. I develop a model of the incentives created bymetrics management, a bureaucratic accountability technique, using policing as a case to show that monitoring can lead public‐interest motivated bureaucrats to focus on work not in the public interest. Second, I develop a new measure of data manipulation in crime statistics: although theory predicts the presence of manipulation, researchers observe only the altered data. I solve this using the fact that police departments can reclassify rapes (but not other violent crimes) as “unfounded,” concluding the reported crime did not occur. Finally, I test the effects of metrics management in policing using a novel data set. CompStat is associated with at least 3,500 additional minor arrests per city‐year, substantial data manipulation, and no decrease in serious crime. These results have implications for bureaucracies implementing metrics management, scholarship using administrative data, and legal implementation

Accountability · Bureaucracy · Business · Computer security · Economics · Incentive · Political science · Public relations · Scholarship · Work (physics · Computer Science · Crime Patterns and Interventions · Engineering · Law · Policing Practices and Perceptions · Public Administration · Regulation and Compliance Studies