SPECIALIZATION
Dr. Shane specializes in technical assistance related to police policy and practice issues, research, evaluation, training, and litigation support. Dr. Shane typically works with mayors and city councils, county executives and county commissions, police executives (chief, sheriff, director, commissioner), labor unions, joint committees, and law firms.
TRAINING
Dr. Shane conducts training in several disciplines including criminal investigations, data analysis and statistics, use of force, performance management, and problem-oriented policing (POP).
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Dr. Shane conducted POP training and criminal investigation training for the Uruguay National Police (Montevideo, UY). Dr. Shane develops his training courses based on university-level academic principles supported by science.
DATA ANALYSIS
Data analysis is a process of inspecting, cleansing, transforming, and modeling data with the goal of discovering useful information, informing conclusions, and supporting decision-making. Statistics is a branch of mathematics that pertains to collecting, analyzing, interpreting, or explaining and presenting data.
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Dr. Shane teaches graduate-level statistics and is a quantitative researcher with extensive experience using and analyzing data. Have Dr. Shane train your staff, or conduct the analysis for your organization.
POLICY EVALUATION
Policy Evaluation is the systematic collection and analysis of information to make judgments about contexts, activities, characteristics, or outcomes of one or more domain(s) of the Policy Process. Evaluation typically informs and improves policy development, adoption, implementation, and effectiveness, and builds the evidence base for policy interventions.
PROGRAM EVALUATION
Program evaluation is a systematic method for collecting, analyzing, and using information to answer questions about projects, policies and programs particularly about their effectiveness and efficiency. Program evaluation usually takes two forms, process evaluation and impact evaluation, which are intended to assess processes and intended outcomes.
TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE
Technical assistance (TA) is the process of providing targeted support to an organization to address a specific issue or problem, or to build capacity, support, and value in the organization.
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Some of Dr. Shane's previous TA work includes workload and call-volume analysis, activity-based budgeting, community and problem-oriented policing, and performance management.
PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
Performance management is a systematic effort to improve performance through an ongoing process of establishing desired outcomes, setting performance standards, then collecting, analyzing and reporting on streams of data to improve individual and collective performance. Policing has begun adopting this evolving management paradigm, which represents a departure from the traditional management approach police agencies are accustomed to working with. Dr. Shane created a performance management framework that reflects the policing environment.
Dr. Shane trained the entire U.S. Army Military Police in his model and has lectured extensively across the U.S. in this management method.
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Dr. Shane was involved in designing and implementing the Newark Police Department's Compstat process in 1996 and wrote the seminal article on the methodology for the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin in 2004. He coauthored a follow-up article for the IACP Police Chief magazine in 2006.
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Read more at ResearchGate.
DIFFERENTIAL RESPONSE
Is there a more efficient and effective method of answering citizen-initiated calls for service? Research indicates the answer is YES. For many decades, citizen satisfaction was measured by swift response time. Although this has some merit, what happens if a police department actually begins to manage calls for service through alternate response techniques (e.g., delayed response to non-critical calls for service, using unsworn employees where there is no need for a sworn officer; using telephone, online or mail-in reporting).
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Differential police response is an opportunity to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of a police department's patrol function. The effort is aimed at shifting and sharing responsibility for calls for service to other government services, the nonprofit sector and the corporate sector to develop a comprehensive alternative response system intended to improve performance by efficiently utilizing the Department's total resources.
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Differential response is best achieved through a workload and Pareto analysis linked to an activity-base budget. These component pieces enable the Department to make the best use of limited resources.
PROBLEM-ORIENTED POLICING AND SITUATIONAL CRIME PREVENTION
Problem-oriented policing (POP) is an approach to policing in which discrete pieces of police business (each consisting of a cluster of similar incidents, whether crime or acts of disorder, that the police are expected to handle) are subject to microscopic examination (drawing on the especially honed skills of crime analysts and the accumulated experience of operating field personnel) in hopes that what is freshly learned about each problem will lead to discovering a new and more effective strategy for dealing with it. Problem-oriented policing places a high value on new responses that are preventive in nature, that are not dependent on the use of the criminal justice system, and that engage other public agencies, the community and the private sector when their involvement has the potential for significantly contributing to the reduction of the problem. Problem-oriented policing carries a commitment to implementing the new strategy, rigorously evaluating its effectiveness, and, subsequently, reporting the results in ways that will benefit other police agencies and that will ultimately contribute to building a body of knowledge that supports the further professionalization of the police (Herman Goldstein, (2001).
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Situational crime prevention is focused on the settings for crime, rather than upon those committing criminal acts. It seeks to forestall the occurrence of crime, rather than to detect and sanction offenders. It seeks not to eliminate criminal or delinquent tendencies through improvement of society or its institutions, but merely to make criminal action less attractive to offenders. Central to this enterprise is not the criminal justice system, but a host of public and private organizations and agencies — schools, hospitals, transit systems, shops and malls, manufacturing businesses and phone companies, local parks and entertainment facilities, pubs and parking lots — whose products, services and operations spawn opportunities for a vast range of different crimes (Clarke, 1997, p. 2).
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Read Dr. Shane's POP project on reducing drug dealing in privately-owned apartment complexes in Newark, NJ, and his POP guide on abandoned buildings and lots.
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ACITIVITY-BASED BUDGETING AND WORKLOAD ANALYSIS
Activity-based budgeting is an outgrowth of activity-based costing (ABC), which is similar to zero-based budgeting. This budget type accounts for how staff members allocate their effort among activities. Once the full cost of each activity has been calculated, drivers can be established that link support activities to the primary activities of the organization—in a law enforcement environment the primary activities are the direct costs of program delivery (e.g., patrol services, investigations, tactical operations, traffic control, etc.).
By developing a comprehensive activity-based budget executives are able to create a clear nexus between workload and costs. Once developed, executives and managers can exercise control in several ways: 1) assign personnel based upon a demonstrated need, 2) expand or contract personnel proportionately as the need changes, 3) uncover waste and hidden costs, 4) view which activities are most and least expensive, thus subjecting them review, 5) assess the full efficiency of the organization, 6) identify places to cut spending, 7) establish a cost baseline that may be influenced through process or technology changes that reduce effort requirements for the activity and, perhaps most importantly 8) argue from an informed, objective position in favor of the organization’s budget.
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This model is consistent with CALEA standard 16.1.2 for workload assessments.
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PARETO ANALYSIS
At the leadership and management level of a police department, Pareto Analysis can be used as a quality improvement technique during performance management meetings to figure out what internal issues (e.g., sick use; citizen complaints; use of force incidents) and external issues (e.g., crime, disorder and traffic conditions; calls for service) are responsible for the most complaints, victimizations, and service demands and then dedicate resources to improve those conditions.
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Collecting and examining data can often result in surprises and upend an organization's conventional thinking. For example, police leaders may believe that the majority of calls for service involve crime and disorder conditions. But when Pareto analysis is applied it becomes apparent that many more calls involve service-related issues unrelated to crime and disorder. Perhaps the impression that crime and disorder conditions are responsible for the most calls for service is because of the high-profile coverage these calls generate. However, service-related calls tend to consume more resources, so the department's energy is best devoted to differential response to resolve the problem.
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Pareto Analysis is a technique used for decision making based on the principle that statistically separates a limited number of input factors (e.g., call types) as having the greatest impact on an outcome (e.g., time consumed). Pareto Analysis is based on the theory that 80% of problems (time consumed) can be traced to 20% of the causes (specific call types). Pareto Analysis very easily supports crime analysis, officer deployment and human resource management.
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Although the 80/20 split is seldom achieved in the real world, the principle that a few instances account for the greatest number of outcomes is universal.