Measurement and Analysis of Crime and Justice

The Trial Court Performance Standards (TCPS), a comprehensive organizational court performance system, were 10 years in the making. TCPS significantly advanced the scope of inquiry of performance measurement of the courts and other components of the justice system from one of conceptualization and identification of constructs, variables, and operational definition to one of critical review and evaluation of actual implementation. In contrast to numerous model conceptual approaches to performance measurement and exhortations promoting the idea of court performance measurement, TCPS come with specific directions for how it is to be done. Included are the elements of a complete organizational performance measurement system: (1) the abstract concepts or constructs of desired performance, (2) their concrete representations or variables, and (3) the operational definitions and procedures for measuring the variables.