The Truth About Performance Metrics That the National Police Agency Dares Not Face

Image Source / Taiwan Police Association Facebook Fan Page

During the May 25 meeting of the Fifth Division of the National Conference on Judicial Reform, one of the discussion topics was "Police Performance Reform." To block reform, the National Police Agency (NPA) submitted a superficial and shifting-blame statement titled "Explanatory Data on the Criminal Case Performance System of Police Agencies." The whitewashing in this document becomes immediately clear when compared with the Ministry of Justice's "Opinions on the Scoring System for Police Agency Performance." The two statements read as if they belong to parallel worlds. The NPA claims that the current performance system has already been abolished and that any problematic practices are caused by local police agencies acting arbitrarily; meanwhile, the Ministry of Justice states that the performance system remains in effect and has generated numerous judicial problems. What is the actual truth? Let us expose the facts one by one.

The National Police Agency's "Explanatory Data on the Criminal Case Performance System of Police Agencies" contains multiple issues, which instead highlight the necessity for reform. The details are as follows:

Police KPIs are established without stated reasons, making it impossible to examine their scientific validity and rationality.

In the first point of its explanation, the NPA indicates that it sets various KPIs in accordance with the Executive Yuan's requirements. The problem is that no explanation is provided for why these KPIs are set the way they are. As mentioned in the text, the key performance indicator for criminal cases by the NPA in 2017 was "enhancing the effectiveness of cutting off the drug supply" (targeting four types of criminal suspects involved in drug manufacturing, transportation, trafficking, and possession with intent to sell, using the highest value of the past 5 years as a baseline, and increasing it by 1 percentage point annually: 6,885 people in 2017; 6,953 in 2018; 7,022 in 2019; and 7,090 in 2020). However, no explanation was given as to why the KPI requires an annual increase of 1 percentage point in the number of apprehensions.

Setting KPIs in an unscientific manner and without providing reasons produces at least two side effects. First, it prevents police agencies from considering how to use scientific methods to approach and estimate overall public safety and social conditions. For example, how can the true state of the drug supply market be estimated? What are the limitations and constraints of research in this regard? Second, setting KPIs in this manner may distort behavioral motivation. For instance, if the drug supply market shrinks as a result of law enforcement efforts, the number of apprehensions should theoretically decrease year by year instead. Does this KPI setting method instead encourage frontline officers not to crack down on the source, but rather to allow the supply source to continue existing in order to continually meet the required KPI?

Work plans and targets related to police KPIs may be formulated based on diverse opinions and thus lack scientific validity and rationality, and they are not made public, leaving outsiders unable to review them and help provide improvement suggestions.

In the second point of its explanation, the NPA states that various work plans and targets are formulated "in order to respond to the aforementioned performance evaluations of the agency's criminal case key performance indicators by the Executive Yuan, supervisory matters of the Control Yuan, related public safety conditions, and public feedback (demands)..." This breaks down into two parts: first, diverse opinions; and second, related public safety conditions. The issue of how to set KPIs based on public safety conditions actually involves how to scientifically grasp overall public safety and social conditions—an issue addressed in point 1 of this article. Particularly since the NPA claims to set KPIs based on "the population size, number of police officers, and public safety characteristics of the jurisdictions of various county and city police departments," their scientific validity should be subject to examination. Yet, the relevant work plans, targets, and the reasons for their formulation are not made public. Consequently, outsiders have no way to provide input to help improve them.

Regarding diverse opinions, the issue is whether these opinions are reasonable. The Executive Yuan's evaluations, the Control Yuan's opinions, public feedback (demands), and so on may each focus on different policy issues, and whether these opinions are reasonable and feasible ought to be examined. Considering that diverse opinions are not necessarily reasonable or feasible, making work plans, targets, and their underlying basis and reasons public for external review can also assist the NPA and frontline officers in coping with unreasonable performance demands.

Although work plans (projects) do not "directly" affect the police promotion system and channels, they do have an impact on personnel administration.

In the third point of its explanation, the NPA points out that "police promotions are comprehensively considered based on merit, seniority, and service history; therefore, this agency's related work plans (projects) do not directly affect the police promotion system and channels." In practice, police promotions do reference personnel performance evaluations and received rewards and punishments, which have a more direct impact; while political and patronage relationships, as well as the subjective impressions brought by performance records, will not be directly listed on promotion official documents, they nonetheless have an effect. Furthermore, the degree of achievement of goals set by work plans may also involve rewards and punishments.

Beyond the promotion system, the achievement of performance targets also affects the leave and duty scheduling of frontline officers. In some police stations, if officers fail to meet performance requirements, supervisors may block their leave or intentionally assign them to graveyard shifts. However, this aspect of the situation cannot be directly discerned from official documents unless officers file grievances, making it difficult for outsiders to know.

The NPA shifts the blame for the formulation of unreasonable work plans and targets onto local police agencies while failing to design a systemic feedback mechanism for frontline officers, which is truly an evasion of responsibility.

In its fourth point of explanation, the NPA mentions that "to simplify operations... this agency... convened senior cadres and scholars... to abolish the performance evaluation system, replacing evaluations with project-based supervision. Furthermore, regarding the individual performance of frontline officers, this agency has never set relevant standards and requirements; however, in order to achieve execution results, some police agencies have independently assessed their jurisdictional conditions, characteristics, and priority work to set individual officer performance (scoring) to meet public safety maintenance needs and personnel evaluation purposes. Based on the 'regional responsibility system' and institutional administrative authority, this agency respects this in principle, but if any violations, unfairness, or unreasonableness are discovered, we will also moderately suggest that the agency review and amend them."

The NPA's claim that it has abolished the performance evaluation system and replaced evaluations with project-based supervision is completely imperceptible to frontline personnel. Frontline officers must still execute duties in accordance with various work plans and targets, which in turn affect personnel matters. At the beginning of 2017, a work plan stipulated that ATMs in various regions must not be used by fraud syndicate runners to withdraw illicit funds more than a specified number of times, under penalty of punishment. Furthermore, no reasons were published for the specified number of times. This work plan provoked considerable backlash from frontline officers; whether it continued to be implemented thereafter remains unclear. This shows that the NPA's claim of abolishing the performance evaluation system is merely putting old wine in new bottles.

In addition, the NPA also shifts the blame for the formulation of unreasonable work plans and targets onto local police agencies. For if the NPA had not set unreasonable work plans and targets, why would local police agencies bother to independently establish unreasonable individual officer performance quotas (scoring)? The NPA's claim that it respects the authority of local police agencies and can only moderately suggest reviews and amendments upon discovering unreasonable situations is likewise an evasion of responsibility. As the competent authority, it ought to establish a system that makes performance metrics scientific and rational, allowing frontline officers to voice issues regarding feasibility. In this regard, the correct path is to establish a performance indicator committee to review the scientific validity of performance indicators and the reasonableness of performance requirements, and—following the formulation of performance goals, adopting the practices of social work units—to hold meetings reviewing the executability of performance demands, allowing appeals if execution is impossible. For the practices of social work units, please refer to the "Implementation Plan for On-site Evaluations of Social Welfare Performance Executed by Central Government for Special Municipalities and County (City) Governments in 2017."

Emphasizing that responsibility will be investigated if police personnel engage in "harboring cases" or "fabrication" without fundamentally reforming the performance system is putting the cart before the horse.

In the fifth point of its explanation, the NPA mentions that "the agency's criminal work review meetings irregularly require all police agencies handling criminal cases to comply with the Police Power Exercise Act, the Code of Criminal Procedure, and other laws and regulations, and prohibit any circumstances of 'harboring cases' or 'fabrication'... and implement case control mechanisms. Should any violations occur, this agency will strictly investigate the responsibility of relevant personnel for inadequate supervision." This shifts systemic problems onto individual officers. Without an unreasonable performance system, why would frontline officers bother to "harbor cases" or "fabricate"? Therefore, the fundamental solution lies in thoroughly reforming the performance system and its supporting measures to eradicate the motives of frontline officers to "harbor cases" or "fabricate."

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