Weaknesses

The study uses cross-sectional analysis and hence neglects the progress in police performance over time, as well as a comparison of pre- versus post-implementation of the recommended practice. The study also ignores the length of time each recommended practice was in place. An extended use of recommended practices has more impact on performance, as not only do these practices become embedded in the organizational culture, but the employees also become accustomed to them and gain experience dealing with them. Furthermore, any problems with the implementation of the practices might also be isolated.

Although I used past performance as the supra control variable for all unknown effects, it is still an incomplete measure to entirely control for the plethora of socio- economic, socio-political, and agency-specific characteristics. To name a few examples, crime rates in any city or town might depend on available job opportunities for the youth,

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the extent of political discontent among the minority, or whether the police officers are competent to conduct their duties.

The dissertation studies only one aspect of police performance. Although crime rates are important indicators of police performance, they are only a part of a bigger picture of policing success. A reduction in crime rates may or may not have an impact on the perceptions of crime rates among the citizens or sense of safety and security among the citizens. Furthermore, going too far in trying to reduce crimes might result in a brutal use of force and excessive measures by police officers. The adoption of a performance management system by the NYPD is one such example, where increased reports of police abuse and human rights violations were received during the period police adopted a strict implementation of CompStat.

Furthermore, the crime rates used in this study are only the reported crimes, which may or may not be a true representation of the actual crimes committed in the respective jurisdictions. While some marginal communities might be shy to contact the police due to negative perceptions of the police force, police officers might also be discouraged to look for crimes and avoid dealing with them in order to keep their numbers clean (e.g., see Eterno & Silverman, 2010). Reported crime rates in categories such as motor vehicle thefts are more reliable measures of the actual crime situation compared to forcible rapes, where less than half of cases are reported to the police.

Response bias is another possible source of weakness in the study, as the agencies which use recommended practices in designing and implementing performance

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others might choose not to. The sample might have thus ignored the performance of agencies which do not use performance management systems.

Biased perceptions of the police chiefs concerning their own ability to design and implement performance management systems might not necessarily be a true reflection of how these systems were actually implemented. In some cases, police chiefs might not even be the right people to ask such questions. For example, police chiefs might have a high opinion of their own ability to set specific goals or provide feedback to the officers, which might not be how the employees on the ground could perceive these

characteristics. Police chiefs sitting at the top might not even be aware of the on-the- ground situation, such as how much discretion the captains allow their officers.

The relatively small sample size of the study might prevent us to pick up possible real but small effects of recommended practices on police performance due to low

statistical power. Crime rates are too wide a concept to be strongly impacted by a specific management function adopted by the police, while other complex socio-economic factors might be at play to determine the crime rates in a town or city. For example, while the adoption of performance management practices by the police is usually touted as the reasons behind the decrease in crime rates in New York in the late 1990s (Bratton & Malinowski, 2008), Levitt and Dubner (2005) propose in their book Freakonomics that the real reason behind this decrease was the legalization of abortion in the 1980s, which helped have fewer young men on the streets of New York.

Reverse causality might be another factor which might explain these weaknesses. As performance management systems are becoming an increasingly popular source to reduce crimes, the police agencies with more performance failures and higher crime rates

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might be the ones who are the most pressed to use these systems to help them reduce crimes. These agencies might also be more likely to adopt performance management systems more seriously and following the recommended practices. For example, such police agencies might provide more discretion to their officer to go after criminals or consult with citizens to ensure their buy-in.

Nevertheless, given all its weaknesses, this study is a first step toward

empirically verifying the utility of following the recommended practices in designing and implementing performance management systems and provides limited evidence of the effectiveness of following recommended practices.