The Centre for Criminal Justice Studies is delighted to welcome Professor Jacques de Maillard, University of Versailles-Saint-Quentin en Yvelines, leads a seminar on his paper: ‘Police Performance Regimes and Police Activity: Compstat in Paris and London Compared’ which highlights the use of performance indicators and targets by two large European police organisations, the Metropolitan Police Service in London and the Préfecture de police in Paris.

Abstract

This seminar will explore and analyse the implementation of Compstat-like processes in two large European police organizations: the Metropolitan Police Service in London and the Préfecture de police in Paris. Compstat-like processes are characterized by processes framed by performance indicators and targets, performance assessment sessions, units dedicated to the collection and analysis of performance data, and information processing requiring the use of crime data. Such processes raise two broad sets of questions. First, do these innovations lead to tighter or more encompassing crime control strategies? Second, does the old command-and-control organizational model of police departments emerge reinforced, or does innovation foster the emergence of a new, more deliberative, problem-solving style of management? The paper analyses the mix of common features (limited geographical decentralization, increasing internal accountability based on the centrality of quantitative data, the prioritizing of crime reduction, and the influence of new technologies on how data is used) and differences (the range of indicators used, broader in London, and the management styles, more in line with a neo-managerial impetus in London). Interpreting these contrasts requires an analytical framework combining both the administrative, political and cultural traditions in the two police forces and the intentional projects carried out by political and professional actors.

About the Speaker

Jacques de Maillard is Professor of Political Science at the University of Versailles-Saint-Quentin, deputy-director of the Cesdip (a research centre affiliated to the CNRS, the University of Versailles, the University of Cergy and the ministry of Justice) and member of the Institut Universitaire de France. His interests lie in the questions of governance of security, plural policing, police reforms and the comparative study of policing in European countries.

http://www.uvsq.fr/m-jacques-de-maillard--369175.kjsp