Award Information
Description of original award (Fiscal Year 2008, $199,561)
The Edward Byrne Memorial Competitive Program: National Initiatives, administered by the Office of Justice Programs' (OJP) Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), furthers the Department's mission by assisting state and local jurisdictions in improving the criminal justice system and assisting communities in preventing drug abuse and crime. In FY 2008, the program will focus on funding local, regional, and national efforts within five major categories: 1) preventing crime and drug abuse; 2) enhancing local law enforcement; 3) enhancing local courts; 4) enhancing local corrections and offender reentry; and 5) facilitating justice information sharing.
RAND Corporation will use the grant funds to develop a standard set of performance metrics used by law enforcement agencies seeking to gain and maintain a Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA) accreditation. This project will support category 2: enhancing local law enforcement. Several years ago, CALEA assembled a group of 14 law enforcement agencies to develop a set of performance indicators that these agencies agreed to test and use. The RAND Corporation, in cooperation with CALEA, tested a subset of the CALEA indicators in three agencies to (a) standardize definitions of indicators across participating agencies and (b) conduct a small pilot with the three agencies to determine the feasibility and cost of gathering and disseminating data to construct performance indicators.
RAND Corporation will use this grant to hold a conference on performance indicators attended by the 14 interested CALEA law enforcement agencies. The conference will present the results of the pilot test, finalize measures, and refine the measures based on the pilot results. Ten of the agencies that did not participate in the original pilot would then field test the measures to ascertain costs and logistical problems in collecting information needed to construct the indicators. A guidebook will be developed for administrators of law enforcement agencies interested in producing and publicizing performance indicators on a regular basis. The ultimate goal of this work is the adoption by CALEA of a standard that will prescribe regular production and publication of a set of performance metrics by agencies seeking to gain and maintain CALEA accreditation.
CA/NCF