Police et évaluation des performances Étude de cas sur les penalty notices for disorder(Performance measures and the Police : a case study on penalty notices for disorder)

Penalty notices for disorder (PNDs) were introduced in England and Wales under the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001. These police-issued fines (of £60 or £90) can be issued for 29 low-level offences including breach of s5 of the Public Order Act 1986, drunk and disorderly, shoplifting and possession of cannabis. Since PNDs were rolled-out nationally over 1.4 million tickets have been issued. However, in recent years, their use has fallen dramatically. Following a peak, in 2007, of 207,544, in 2013 84,268 PNDs were issued. This changing use of penalty notices will be examined in the context of New Public Management and, in particular, with regard to the relevant police performance measure (in place from 2002 to 2008) which looked to increase the number of offences defined as being ‘brought to justice’. Performance criteria which simply count ‘outputs’ (such as the number of PNDs issued) fail to assess ‘outcomes’ i.e. what is being achieved by different police actions. These criteria encourage a focus on the measurable over the immeasurable, creating perverse incentives which can distort decision making, encouraging whereby officers’ actions serve to meet letter, rather than the purpose, of any given target. Drawing on national data on the use of PNDs, street-level police observations and informal interviews with officers, as well as a review of 250 PND tickets, this paper considers how performance management has affected officer decision-making. The use of PNDs provides a case study to reflect on how certain powers and offences are particularly prone to gaming