The challenges facing the new breed of politicians who take control of police forces tomorrow were put in sharp focus as five detectives were arrested in an anti-corruption investigation.
The Times can disclose that the officers from Kent Police — four men and a woman — were detained at their police station and questioned over allegations of manipulating statistics in order to meet crime detection targets.
The officers, a detective inspector, a detective sergeant and three detective constables, are accused of persuading suspects to confess to offences they had not committed in order to improve the unit’s performance statistics.
Because as soon as you’ve set the targets by which you’re going to manage or plan it then people game them.
6 responses so far ↓
1 Oxonymous // Nov 15, 2012 at 9:27 am
Didn’t the Six Blind Men of Indostan have the last word about targetted performance measurement?
2 bloke in france // Nov 15, 2012 at 10:25 am
Only 5 of them? The inspector gadget blog hints that this goes on all the time, and will get worse with elected target setters.
3 Peter Risdon // Nov 15, 2012 at 10:31 am
This has been going on for decades, not years. I strongly doubt that targets have made things worse than they were in the 1970s and first half of the 1980s.
4 david // Nov 15, 2012 at 12:07 pm
Quick question how do you check the police are doing well without targets?
5 Gazza // Nov 15, 2012 at 12:20 pm
Read Wasting Police Time( a book by a serving PC)… it’s an eye opener…
6 Surreptitious Evil // Nov 15, 2012 at 12:51 pm
The “Crime Survey for England and Wales”, for example?
Leave a Comment