NCJ Number
185547
Date Published
January 2000
Length
35 pages
Annotation
This chapter intends to stimulate critical review and
experimentation directed not only at the substance of Trial Court
Performance Standards (TCPS) -- a milestone in the development of
concepts, techniques, and strategies to examine the performance
of courts and the justice system -- but also at their application
by courts.
Abstract
TCPS is a comprehensive organizational court performance system
that was 10 years in the making. TCPS has 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 that promote the idea of court performance measures,
the TCPS have specific directions for how it is to be done.
Included are the elements of a complete organizational
performance measurement system: the abstract concepts or
constructs of desired performance, their concrete representations
or variables, and the operational definitions and procedures for
measuring the variables. Despite their widespread use by courts
throughout the United States, TCPS are not well known outside the
community of court practitioners. This chapter reviews the
constructs, variables, and operational definitions of the TCPS;
traces the history of their development; and explores their
contribution to knowledge about the performance measurement of
courts and other components of the justice system. The
terminology and logic of performance measurement -- that of
"inputs," "outputs," and "outcomes" -- are then applied to the
enterprise of court performance measurement itself, particularly
the strategies for the acceptance, adoption, and use of the TCPS
in the context of general resistance to organizational
performance measures among court practitioners. 12 notes and 45
references
Date Published: January 1, 2000