Anyone who's seen The Wire is intimately familiar with the process of playing with crime statistics to make them look better, rather than actually controlling crime. Radley Balko has a dreadful real world example:
Arthur Tesler was the only officer to take part in the Kathryn Johnston raid who didn’t take a plea bargain. Despite admitting that he lied, helped cover up Johnston’s murder, and stood watch outside while other officers handcuffed the bleeding 92-year-woman—allowing her to die while they planted marijuana in her basement—he was convicted today only on the charge of lying to investigators. He’ll face a maximum of five years in prison.The one good thing to come out of the case is we got to see just how vast, deep, and pernicious the culture of corruption and disregard for civil rights ran in Atlanta’s police department. Tesler testified that narcotics officers were required to serve nine warrants and make two arrest per month, or they’d risk losing their jobs. This led to routine lying on warrants and bullying and intimidation of informants. What we don’t know is how many people were wrongly raided, arrested, and jailed because of all of this.
Compensation systems are really hard to design, as I wrote many years ago:
The agency problem is the fancy economic term for what most of us already knew intuitively; what benefits the stockholders doesn't necessarily benefit management. For example, I can think of many executives I've worked with on "re-engineering" projects, who, if they wanted to be honest about what would make their department work better, would "re-engineer" themselves right out the door and let somebody competent take over. Somehow, however, it was always one of their minions, usually one they didn't like too well, who was found to be superfluous. There are all sorts of ways in which this agency problem affects managers actions to the detriment of their shareholders, but one of the most widely known is in compensation.If you know anyone in corporate sales, you probably already know of the hilarious shenanigans in which the sales force engages in order to meet their quotas. The purchasing manager at my old job was good for 10K or so of thoroughly bogus orders at the end of the month or the quarter to help our sales reps meet their quotas; in return they gave us a little extra off our regular purchases. These orders were invariably cancelled, after a decent interval, due to the whims of our fictitious clients. None of this was good for the companies for whom these sales reps worked; it benefited only the sales force.
But trying to prevent these gymnastics has proved futile. Change the quota from orders to sales and they'll ship the stuff out and have it "returned", incurring shipping charges both ways; change sales to "final sales" and they'll leave, because no one's willing to have their income that dependant on the whims of people they don't know. This applies even more to executives, who have much more power to manipulate matters so that they keep their job.
I was talking about CEO pay. But the problem matters more in the criminal justice system. We grade our prosecutors not on being right, but on winning. Cops are given stupid quotas rather than a mandate to, you know, actually reduce crime. Years ago, I read Joe McGuinness's Fatal Vision, on the once-infamous Jeffrey MacDonald case. At the time, it seemed like a fascinating insight into how you investigate a case. Then a few years ago, I came across Fatal Justice, a book on the case--and the role that McGuinness played in it--which offers pretty compelling evidence that MacDonald is possibly innocent and certainly the victim of forensic incompetence compounded by gross prosecutorial misconduct. If this happens in the spotlight, what's going on in the dark corners of the criminal justice system?
Well, things like this outrage, apparently. The Atlanta PD needs to remember that its job is to fight crime, not just put people in jail.
But in our justice system, winning = being right. Except for obvious misconduct, how do you separate the two let alone grade just on "being right?"
Megan; If this kind of stuff interests you I would highly recommend Peter Moskos' book Cop in the Hood. He cites all kind of arrest statistics and how economics influence police behavior. Very well written. (Actually, I would be surprised if you havent read it already)
Steve
Takeflight,
A prosecutor has discretion as to the exact charge brought against a suspect. He can make criminals seem to be much worse or more powerful than they are by making different charges. If a glorified courier gets popped with drugs that are ready to sell he can use kingpin statutes and make it appear he is doing great things in the war on drugs.
The police can do this as well, but not as easily by burying mitigating evidence and highlighting aggravating information. Remember the "undercover detective" in Texas who wrote his case notes on his leg and presented a large percentage of a town of dirt farmers as cocaine kingpins.
The former is a particularly good example of winning not equaling being right.
This is a good example of what happens when politicians try to graft business practices on to functions that are uniquely governmental, and inappropriate for such treatment. In their desire to establish "metrics" for performance, and get away from subjective evaluations that are difficult and painful to defend, they establish quota systems that they vehemently defend as NOT being quota systems (because "quotas" are not acceptable). The overall effect is to corrupt our language, our officials, and our system of government.
It happens everywhere in government, at the local, state, and federal level. It used to be that these quotas could be gamed, but the politicians and their critics recognized the gaming, and they instituted controls to prevent it. In the Federal government, Senior Managers are paid more if they work in an agency with a performance evaluation system that has been determined by OMB to provide "real, meaningful, measurable distinctions" in performance among supervisors and managers.
Trouble is, lots of government functions do not lend themselves to metrification, no matter what the young MBA consultants say. So you end up with cops ticking/arresting innocent people, and the populace losing faith in the ability of government.
That's basically her point: It's not that our metrics are imperfect, it's that all metrics are imperfect, and the rabid pursuit of the metrics leads to magnification of the imperfection.
In theory, transparency, discretion/empowerment, and accountability are the best we can do. In other words:
1. You have the prosecutor tell his boss (and possibly the public) exactly what he's doing, every step of the way.
2. You give his boss discretion over promotions and firings, rather than forcing him to adhere to a system of metrics, like "most convictions" or "fewest overturned cases". This way, when the prosecutor does his best in a case where the defendant is actually innocent, and that becomes apparent, the boss doesn't hold it against him, because he knows every step taken was the right one.
3. You repeat this concept upwards, with the boss' boss paying attention to his actions and wielding good judgment.
Easier said than done, and most people have trouble trusting the discretion and judgment of those involved (sometimes with good reason). Perhaps the "system of metrics" alternative is better on net, but it does lead to lots of other problems.
Put a video camera in all squad cars and transmit randomly to the viewing public.
That's be better than quotas, but the police unions wouldn't allow it.
Put a video camera in all squad cars and transmit randomly to the viewing public.
That would be better than quotas, but the police unions wouldn't allow it.
Another basic problem with the criminal justice system is it creates a mindset where criminals are viewed as less than human. This leads to cops and prosecutors being willing to arrest and charge someone they think is a bad guy even if they suspect he didn't commit that particular crime.
The system is made up of people that think the ends justify the means. Getting a bad guy off the street makes the neighbors safer, even if the neighbors are falsely accused or have their houses searched by overzealous cops in the process.
We have a criminal justice system that is very good at getting convictions. When it comes to convicting the right person for the right crime, it gets a lot weaker.
What was the Jeffrey MacDonald case?
"But in our justice system, winning = being right. "
Exactly what is wrong with it. It works on a production model in which convictions = success. How stupid. Real success would be a situation in which there are are no convictions because there are no crimes. But no one in LE gets graded by that metric.
Is anyone stupid enough to suggest that soldiers should get paid on a piecework basis? That idiocy is called "body count" in the Army, and it is obviously no measure of success in war or peace keeping. Why should it be any different in LE?
Believe it or not, there are some things that don't fit industrial metrics
Dr. Jeffrey MacDonald is still infamous and will be until the day he dies. He was convicted in 1979 of murdering his pregnant wife and two daughters, ages 2 and 5. Joe McGinniss' book, "Fatal Vision," remains the definitive work on the case. "Fatal Justice" was and is an embarrassingly bad book.