Patent Application: US-201213709013-A

Abstract:
performance scores can be used to identify police officers whose domestic violence investigations are habitually insufficient , those types of investigations being routinely rejected by prosecutors . by identifying specific areas of investigative weakness , per officers , supervisors are able to design specific remediation training that responds to areas of identified deficiency . p score data can be used to track officer performance during periods of improvement . aggregated p score data can be used to assess entire police agencies for the sufficiency of their response to domestic violence crime . the p score method fills a vacuum that currently exists in criminal justice , because presently no quantitative method exists to identify problem areas of individual officer &# 39 ; s investigative habits .

Description:
a value of “ 1 ” is recorded each time one of five non - charge oit &# 39 ; s are found to have been operationalized , those being : if an emergency protective order was obtained . if photographs were obtained . if witnesses were located . if the defendant was arrested . if the written report was completed the same day as the investigation . the number of charges listed is the score given for that oit category ; thus , if one charge is listed , one point is given , if two charges are listed , two points are given , and so on . because it is possible none of the non - charge oit &# 39 ; s will be operationalized , but because at least one crime code is always listed in a crime report , the range of p scores is ≧ 1 . table 1 provides eight examples of how p scores are calculated for individual police reports , how aggregated data is used to determine average p scores , by officer , how frequencies of use are also determined from aggregated data , per officer , for the five non - charge oit &# 39 ; s , and finally how a mean is determined for the number of charges listed . 6 using report # 1712 as an example , we see that the officer did not locate additional witnesses , so a value of “ 0 ” is recorded ; photographs and an epo were obtained , so “ 1 ” is recorded for each ; and because no arrest was made , and the report was not completed the same day as the investigation , those categories are marked with “ 0 ”. only one crime was alleged , so “ 1 ” is the value for that category . summing the numbers produces the p score for this report , which is “ 3 ”. 6 these data are derived from an article i published . see nelson 2012 for details . two officers are compared in table 1 . each had four reports that were included in the study . their average p score is quite different ; for officer # 377 is 4 . 25 , and for officer # 137 it is 2 . 75 . overall , the p score averages reveal that officer # 137 is , at least in the sample investigations , routinely more thorough in her / his work when compared to officer # 377 . we see that officer # 137 did not obtain any epo &# 39 ; s ; whereas , officer # 377 obtained them 75 % of the time , and so on . using these data officer # 137 could be identified as needing remediation training on how to locate witnesses , obtain photographs , obtain epo &# 39 ; s , and investigate more deeply for possible additional crimes . officer # 377 can be remediated on locating witnesses . using data from my original study , 7 i tested the p score method for statistical reliability , to see if , in fact , it actually distinguishes between categories of officers . i did so by selecting officers with three or more dv investigative reports , then calculating mean p scores for each police officer . i sorted officers into high , medium , and low average p score categories , then compared the high and low groups . 7 i studied every domestic violence police report written by a mid - sized california police agency during the year 2007 , following them for 2 . 5 years ( n = 1 , 810 ). from those reports i randomly selected n = 366 investigations for collection of 242 different types of data . a study of this depth and magnitude has never been carried out before . the validation analysis for the p score method , as discussed in this section of the patent application , is based upon analysis of those n = 366 randomly selected cases . as the results in table 2 demonstrate , the difference between group averages was significant for all six oit &# 39 ; s , as well as for group p score averages . thus , it can be concluded that this method can distinguish low , middle , and high range officers , and that the differences between the low and high range is statistically significant . i believe the p score method is statistically and methodologically defensible . further comparison showed that the investigations of the low group are rejected by prosecutors three times more often . 8 8 rejection rate , low group = 49 %, rejection rate high group = 18 %, z = 2 . 99 , p & lt ; 0 . 00 . the fact that the rate of prosecution is higher than the national average reflects an aggressive prosecution policy by the prosecutor &# 39 ; s office , not better than average reporting by police . archer , j . 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