THERE is wisdom in the saying, “Targets determine the results.” It suggests that any organization that narrows down how it measures performance could mistakenly produce results that are counter-intuitive to what it truly desires to achieve.
A car manufacturer overly concentrates on the volume of electric vehicles it produces to outperform its closest competitor, yet forsakes the safety and quality of its products, potentially resulting in accidents and deaths. A school focuses more on downloading knowledge to students so they pass licensure exams, but the board passers end up becoming incompetent and ineffective professionals.
This is no different from the Philippine National Police (PNP)’s quota system for operational units to accomplish their mandate by carrying out more arrests, more anti-drug apprehensions, and other programs to suppress criminal activities. The results, however, could yield unintended consequences, such as bogus arrests, illegal searches, planting of evidence, and other abusive practices. Rather than focusing on crime mitigation and deterrence, PNP units may prioritize figures and statistics over the quality, proportionality and legality of their anti-crime operations.
During the previous administration, the quota-driven practice was carried out at alarming levels. Police officers faced extreme pressure to increase illegal drug arrests, while allegations of financial rewards for killings of suspects have emerged in proceedings before the International Criminal Court. Performance became closely associated with how many suspects were arrested rather than the overall peace and order in the community. This contributed to the overcrowding in jails and detention facilities across the country. In July 2018, however, the government reported that 1,060 drug cases had been dismissed and 1,713 accused were acquitted during the first quarter of that year. The Supreme Court has also repeatedly overturned drug convictions because of failures to comply with legal requirements, such the chain of custody in evidence and the presence of insulating witnesses.
The quota system can pressure police officers to carry out arrests, even when these violate the liberties and rights of suspects, merely to fulfill the PNP’s performance evaluation. In behavioral science, this illustrates what we refer to as the "Cobra Effect,” in which a measure produces consequences contrary to the problem it was designed to solve. The Cobra Effect arose from a popular story attributed to British colonial rule in India. The story goes that the British authorities, alarmed by the increasing number of venomous cobras, offered a bounty for every dead cobra. Initially, people killed cobras and collected the rewards. However, some enterprising people began breeding cobras and presented them to the authorities to earn more money.
The PNP quota system is a striking example of the Cobra Effect, when a policy designed to address a problem creates an entirely new problem as people recalibrate their behavior to take advantage of the reward system. Since police officers were encouraged to ramp up arrests, some resorted to unnecessary and illegal arrests to satisfy their superiors’ targets. Instead of collaborating with the community, abusive police officers came to be regarded as an occupying force that pursued arrests over crime prevention. When arrests were made without sufficient evidence or in violation of legal safeguards, the courts simply dismiss the cases or acquit the accused, further eroding public trust in the PNP and wasting taxpayers’ money.
Public servants often align their behavior with incentives and rewards, rather than the actual objectives of their organization. Instead of relying on arrests as an indicator of public safety, the PNP must revisit its performance management system by shifting toward more meaningful and responsive measures. These include periodic surveys of citizens' perception of crime and peace, complaints of police abuses, successful prosecutions and convictions, and even improvement in local business activity. To minimize bias and improve reliability, the PNP may outsource such evaluations to independent third parties, such as the academe and the private sector.
When we measure arrests as a target, we risk producing more “outputs” rather than creating actual “outcomes.” Arrests alone are not an ideal measure of good police performance, but may become a distortion of the true mandate of the PNP. Chasing quotas does not necessarily improve the country’s public safety and security. In fact, it reveals how the PNP can become more concerned with measuring the wrong things rather than upholding its overall mission to enforce the law, ensure public safety, and preserve the peace and stability of the nation.
The last thing we want is a police force that measures its success by arresting more Filipinos merely to justify it is doing its job well, when in truth, it may have turned against the very people it is supposed to serve and protect. Eventually, we will be needing more criminals than people needing better police officers.