Performance
Measures
Although many individual public safety agencies and
programs are tracking their own performance, there is currently no system-wide
measurement system for public safety in place. A couple of groups in
Travis County are working towards this goal however. In an attempt not
to duplicate
their efforts, no new measures were developed for this assessment. Instead,
these groups' measures are presented.
In 1998, system experts developed performance measures
for the Community Action Network's Public
Safety Assessment. The measures developed for this assessment were broad
and were intended to monitor the community performance as a whole. These
measures include (Community Action Network, 1998):
- Increase in the percentage of residents who report an improved perception
of personal safety
- Decrease in the juvenile referral rate
- Decrease in the percentage of juveniles referred who are known or suspected
gang members
- Decrease in the incidence of adult crime
- Decrease in the percentage of offenders re-arrested within three years
of case disposition.
- Increase in the percentage of victims served by victim services
- Decrease in the confirmed child abuse/neglect rate
- Decreased incidence of reported domestic violence
Table 19.
Measures Developed by the Outcome Monitoring
Work Group
Source: Travis County Justice and Public Safety
More recently, under the direction of the Community
Justice Council, the Outcome Monitoring Work Group developed offender-specific
performance measures that will be tracked by justice system entities. These
measures are listed in Table 19.
Finally, The Travis County Community Justice Council
and the University of Texas School of Social Work recently hosted an Evaluation
Roundtable to develop criteria for measuring the performance and outcomes
of community justice initiatives in Travis County. During this Roundtable,
attendees compiled a list of desired outcomes that they believed offenders,
victims, and community would want to achieve in relation to community justice
initiatives. (See Table 20.) The Community Justice
2000 Work Group is in the process of changing these objectives into performance
measures and connecting these measures with the Outcome Monitoring Project.
Table 20.
Desired Outcomes for Offenders, Victims,
and the Community
