"How the hell do we measure a police department's effectiveness?"
The number of crimes committed in an area is often used. If the number goes down, the police are doing a good job of discouraging crime.
This results in in things like absurdly dysfunctional web forms for reporting crimes. People just give up on reporting their car being broken into rather than waste an hour figuring out why their report keeps getting rejected.
Thus there is less reported crime, and the police pat themselves on the back.
The number of crimes committed in an area is often used. If the number goes down, the police are doing a good job of discouraging crime.
This results in in things like absurdly dysfunctional web forms for reporting crimes. People just give up on reporting their car being broken into rather than waste an hour figuring out why their report keeps getting rejected.
Thus there is less reported crime, and the police pat themselves on the back.