بهره وری نسبی اداره پلیس در اسلوونی: تجزیه و تحلیل ناپارامتری

The main purpose of the paper is to apply a non-parametric methodology for measuring public police performance in Slovenia. The paper considers how previous studies have modeled the role of policing in their specifications of inputs and output. In particular, the multiple-stage Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) technique is presented and then applied to measure the relative efficiency of police-work-related data for eleven Police Directorates (PDs) in 2010 and also compared with the efficiency scores in 2005. The data obtained from the police databases is analyzed through the Frontier Analyst 4.0 and SPSS 19.0 statistical package software. The results show that the technical efficiency varies significantly across the police directorates and across the selected years, even when we allow for environmental factors and control for these non-discretionary inputs. Most police directorates in Slovenia could attain a higher output if they were fully efficient. Indeed, all of the inefficient police directorates can learn how to ensure a “good” performance from the efficient ones (i.e. the Maribor PD and the Novo mesto PD) by observing how they are processing their inputs and outputs. Finally, the empirical results of the paper are important indicators of the relative efficiency (or inefficiency) of police directorates that can serve as a guide to the General Police Directorate when further investigating how to enhance the performance efficiency of the various units.

Up until recently the measurement of the efficiency and performance of the state administration was somewhat neglected. A prevalent attitude was that the state administration functions on its own accord and does not merit particular attention given that it has no competition. However, the requirements of the functioning of the public administration and thus also the state administration are becoming increasingly demanding. Due to the limited volume of public funds, there is a growing need to establish efficiency and performance so as to improve the management of the organization as such and to satisfy the needs of the public at large. Like in other spheres, the state administration is also undergoing a transformation aimed at increasing the role of procedures, improving efficiency and promoting result- and customer-driven services. This means following the principles of quality and excellence and the efficient management of the human, financial and material resources in the public administration. The Slovenian police should necessarily join the process of adjusting to modern trends, as should the state administration. The global financial and economic crisis also offers a window of opportunity for deep structural reforms to the police since police activity is a cornerstone of all other institutions of the rule of law, freedom and security; without the police service there can be no development, democracy, economic progress or social and legal equality. Slovenia does not have a modern system for objectively monitoring the state of security as well as the performance, efficiency and quality of the police’s work. Therefore, a central goal of the presented empirical research is to obtain additional expert premises and guidelines for the streamlining and reorganization of the police in Slovenia. The police carry out one of the main activities of public importance that is crucial for ensuring the uninterrupted functioning of modern society. The state allocates a relatively large amount of budget funding for police operations (e.g. in 2010 the Republic of Slovenia allocated about EUR 330 million to the police, accounting for 3.1% of total budget expenditure) and a large share of public employees work in the police (i.e. 8989 employees, accounting for 26.3% of state administration staff in Slovenia in 2010). Due to the importance of this activity and the mentioned desire to improve the use of public funds, ever more countries have decided to transpose successful practices from the private sector into the police sphere and introduce their efficiency and performance measuring methods to the greatest extent possible. The police are clearly a relatively centralized part of the state administration. The legislative solutions differ by country, but in most countries the police are organized hierarchically. In Slovenia, police organizations can be defined at three levels: local (police stations), regional (police directorates) and national (the Slovenian Police). Each of these levels of the structural organization of the police has its own characteristics that facilitate comparisons. At the national level, the most common comparisons include different countries and are based on numerical indicators which are sometimes only conditionally comparable due to differences in national legislation (even similar countries, e.g. EU member states, differ). At the local level, police officers most often have direct contact with people, which is why their activities are the most visible. However, the organizations at the local level are relatively small and the value of the related indicators is strongly influenced by individual extraordinary events, which makes any realistic comparison impossible. Moreover, the autonomy of these units is relatively low as all resources (money, people and technical equipment) are usually allocated at higher regional levels. At the regional level, the organizational units of the police are bigger (greater population, larger territory, etc.). At this level, the relative meaning of individual extraordinary events is reduced and so the objectivity of statistical analysis and the correctness of comparisons is improved. Further, in many countries police organizations at the regional level have a relatively high degree of autonomy when it comes to the allocation of financial, technical and human resources. In this respect, the regional level of police activity (i.e. the level of Police Directorates (PDs) in Slovenia)1 appears to be the most appropriate for benchmarking (i.e. comparing the performance of the units). In the first phase of our empirical study we were interested in establishing which activities of the Slovenian police (at the regional level) were undertaken as a consequence of criminal offenses and breaches of regulations and laws which occurred in the environment. The statistics covering areas of police activity (e.g. crime, road safety, etc.) include several so-called gray areas. The first is that only those criminal offenses that have been recorded actually enter the police system. The second is that once a criminal offense is recorded it may not trigger appropriate activity by the police (research, investigation, etc.). Our study mainly focused on this second area as we were interested in the police’s response to (unlawful) events in the environment. On this basis, we assessed the efficiency of selected police units (i.e. police directorates). The way the police respond to events is also influenced by the importance and structure of the events involved (criminal offenses, violations, etc.) and therefore the efficiency measurement model must also account for these influences. Besides inputs showing the frequency of these events in the environment (quantity), our empirical model included external influences that should reveal the structure of these events (quality). The structure of criminal offenses, public order violations, traffic violations and other events is also influenced by socio-economic and other factors, e.g. population density, employment, age structure, development level of road infrastructure, equipment of the population with motor vehicles, etc. Thus, in this paper we attempt to examine the relative efficiency of the Slovenian Police at the regional level. The paper considers how previous studies have modeled the role of policing in their specifications of inputs and outputs. In particular, a three-stage Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) technique is presented and then applied to measure the relative efficiency of police-work-related data for (all) eleven Police Directorates in 2005 and 2010. This also involves a Tobit regression to control for external (environmental) factors. The data obtained from the police databases is analyzed through the Frontier Analyst 4.0 and SPSS 19.0 statistical package software. The rest of the paper is organized as follows. The next section discusses related prior studies that have influenced the current work. The methodology and data regarding the selection of the input and output measures for use in a three-stage DEA model is then presented. The empirical results obtained from the DEA assessment are presented and discussed in the third part of the paper. The paper concludes with a summary of the findings regarding the use of DEA to improve the performance of police services in Slovenia.

This paper gave an account of the application of a non-parametric methodology to the assessment of police performance in Slovenia. We employed a three-stage DEA procedure to evaluate the efficiency of Slovenian police directorates in 2010 and compare it with 2005. We found significant differences in the efficiency scores and that most police directorates in Slovenia are technically inefficient. Indeed, the empirical results show that between 6 to 7 police directorates (out of 11) (it depends on the core police activity) are inefficient relative to their peers. This suggests there are opportunities for an output increase by augmenting the observed police outputs. Two police directorates, i.e. the Maribor PD and the Novo mesto PD, are rated the most efficient in terms of technical efficiency for all three selected core police activities in 2010 using police statistical data and can therefore serve as a good benchmark. Further, we also showed that police directorates can be investigated in terms of their relative efficiency according to the time dimension. When comparing 2005 and 2010, the efficiency score rankings reveal relatively wide variations among the considered police directorates and their core activities. For instance, the same police directorate (the Celje PD) reveals a significant efficiency improvement in the area of public order and simultaneously a substantial deterioration in the area of crime prevention, detection and investigation. In general, the biggest increase (decrease) of average efficiency rankings of all three core police activities was noticed in the Krško PD (Celje PD), particularly due to efficiency variations for crime prevention, detection and investigation activities in the period under study. Moreover, our empirical analysis indicates that differences in operating environments and socio-economic factors do have a significant influence on the efficiency of police directorates in Slovenia. Finally, we must point out a few notes of caution. Firstly, our empirical research mainly focuses on quantitative dimensions of outputs and inputs. However, there are additional important qualitative dimensions of outputs that were not taken into account; for example, the quality of police work and police officers. It would be desirable to treat these outputs explicitly in our models. Secondly, the three-stage DEA analysis does not enable a direct comparison of performances in the core police activities. However, the calculated average efficiency scores offer aggregate information on the average performance in all three areas. Further, application of the presented technique is hampered by a lack of suitable data and the precise definition of the inputs and outputs, which may influence the empirical results significantly. Last but not least, it is important to note that our findings are important indicators of relative efficiency (or inefficiency), which can serve as a guide for the General Police Directorate when further investigating how to enhance the performance efficiency of its units.