Quality Service Audit Improves Community-Based Policing

By Lincoln Mayor Mike Johanns and Police Chief Tom Casady

The Gallup/Lincoln Police Department Quality Service Audit is an on-going, systematic survey of citizen perceptions regarding the quality of police services in Lincoln, Nebraska. The audit, a partnership between the Lincoln Police Department and one of the City's finest corporate citizens, The Gallup Organization, seeks to provide police officers with feedback about their contacts with citizens, and provide strategic information to police managers implementing quality-improvement practices. The key ingredient in the Quality Service Audit is a focus on quality from the customer's perspective - the citizen who actually receives police services.

Each year, student interns from the University of Nebraska and other area colleges, working at the Lincoln Police Department, complete over 6,000 telephone surveys with Lincoln residents who have recently received police services. Crime victims, drivers in traffic accidents, and even persons who have been arrested or ticketed by the police are surveyed. The survey is composed of ten questions carefully selected by Gallup based on interviews with focus groups of citizens and police officers. Officers receive the survey results from the citizens they actually served on a monthly basis. The data and narrative comments are provided to officers for their own self-improvement. This information is augmented by training from Gallup to assist officers in interpreting and using their results to improve their performance. Agency-wide data is made available to all employees, managers, and to the public through the department's annual report and internet site.

Evaluation systems in police departments tend to use readily available workload and efficiency statistics as indices of both individual and agency performance. Conversely, true measures of the quality of police services are uncommon. The tendency to over-value workload data and under-utilize measures of quality service may result in an organizational milieu that rewards a sort of fast-driving, rapid-response policing which retards efforts to improve relationships with the public, build citizen trust, and implement or encourage a community-based style of policing. While measures of workload and efficiency are valuable, overemphasis on such statistics can be detrimental if an agency does not make a concerted effort to also utilize data about the quality of services provided.

While it is very uncommon to find police agencies which systematically collect, disseminate, and use feedback from the citizens who access their services, private enterprise places considerable emphasis on customer evaluations. Automobile manufacturers mail surveys to recent purchasers, hospitals seek feedback from patients, and the customer response card is a staple in many fast-food restaurants. Businesses realize that their market share, profitability, and prosperity depend on fulfilling the needs and wants of their customers. In the private sector, timely feedback from customers may provide a crucial competitive edge in the marketplace.

The City of Lincoln believes that a concerted effort to collect information from our clients to assess the quality of our services will yield similar dividends. This is not necessarily a novel concept, and indeed many police departments have used citizen surveys in the past to gather information about public perceptions of the police. Few if any, however, have done so on an ongoing basis as part of an organized quality improvement effort.

Results of the survey have been very encouraging. On key questions concerning citizens' perceptions that officers seemed competent, willing to listen to the citizens' point of view, treated citizens with dignity, behaved professionally, and were considerate of citizens' feelings, those surveyed responded positively about 85% to 90% of the time. The survey has helped us refine our practices. For example, QSA results revealed that citizens expected more thorough follow-up on cases, suggesting a need to sensitize officers about the significance of maintaining contact with citizens after the initial report, and for re-evaluating the department's follow-up system. Both of these strategies are presently underway. We also learned that such simple measures as officers introducing themselves, providing case numbers to victims, and leaving business cards are important components of quality. Perhaps one of the most interesting patterns has been the general improving trend which has characterized the results.

It is our belief that the mere fact that the Department is measuring the quality of services, and making this data available to employees is having a positive impact on the quality of services actually delivered. Moreover, after three years, nearly 18,000 Lincolnites have been surveyed. This represents a healthy (and growing) percentage of Lincoln's 207,000 residents, and sends a strong message to the public that the City seeks, appreciates, and utilizes their feedback. At the present time, several other City departments are beginning their own projects to collect and employ feedback from City customers.

The systematic, ongoing evaluation of police services by our customers can and should be a common process employed as a matter of course in police departments that are truly committed to community-based policing. The information provided by such a program will be of immense value for a variety of purposes, from recruitment and selection to assessing training needs. More than anything else, however, measuring the quality of services by consulting with the consumers of those services creates an atmosphere of partnership between police officers and the citizens they serve. This is truly the hallmark of community-based policing, and a prerequisite for its success.