Homework Clinic
Social Science Clinic => Law and Politics => Topic started by: P68T on Jul 31, 2020
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Question 1
Every time feelings and facts collide, feelings will bury the facts. Elaborate.
Question 2
Explain the sentence, "What gets measured gets managed."
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Answer 1
The answer should include the following points:
- If police really want to know what the public thinks about police performance, then the police have to ask them. This can help complement COMPSTAT's facts with the community's feelings.
- When considering citizen input, however, police managers often hesitate to ask for citizen input about police performance because police typically consider such evaluative findings may be psychological, irrational, emotional, subjective, or internal.
- Moreover, facts typically do not dislodge, defuse, or compel feelings to change.
- Some towns have tried to address this issue by integrating the COMPSTAT methodology with community satisfaction surveys, thus getting at the output while simultaneously addressing the outcomes.
Answer 2
The answer should include the following points:
- Police departments need to identify key measurables in order to determine how their policies and actions are affecting the community.
- The measurables are chosen from a huge range of possibilities, such as homicide rates, traffic accidents, budget compliance, citizen complaints, gang activity, property values, and so forth. The act of choosing, however, focuses police activity and management on that measurable, perhaps to the exclusion of other measurables not chosen.