Strengthening the Rule of Law by Measuring Local Practice, One Rule at a Time

The quality of justice, many insist, cannot be measured by an index or an indicator. True enough, at least of justice in the aggregate, or justice with a capital J, but not necessarily of its component parts; and it is on those component parts of justice that reformers must work. In each individual country, province, and city, reformers must strengthen the rule of law one part at a time. Measurement and indicators are essential tools in this work, and fortunately it is well within the capacity of most skilled and creative practitioners to fashion indicators for their local purposes. 

Consider the plight of the Commissioner of the Jamaican Constabulary Force, a police service long the object of domestic and international reform efforts, and yet still struggling in 2009 to reduce frightening rates of homicide and armed violence in much of the country, reduce the use of lethal force by members of the JCF itself, improve the quality of evidence for use in court, improve its treatment of crime victims, and reduce internal corruption, all while improving the full range of basic police services. Years of reform projects, countless training programmes, and legions of consultants had, by that year, left the JCF with lots of new forms, record books, monthly tallies, annual statistics, but few people in or out of the JCF believed the numbers, and with good reason. In the compilation of statistics, even basic terms (such as a “raid” or a “search”) had multiple meanings not only in different police districts but on different shifts in the same district. Meetings of the command staff at a district police station would typically move from anecdote to anecdote, with commanders instructed to respond to the latest incidents, but with no reliable sense of trends or discussion of indicators.

These were largely data-free meetings in a district headquarters littered with unread volumes of meaningless numbers and toppling stacks of useless records. It is a sorry picture recognisable around the world. 

What options are available to such a police chief, determined to strengthen the rule of law but wary of adding to the legacy of failed reform?

This essay is part of the Innovations in the Rule of Law report, produced by the WJP and the Hiil. To read the full essay, click here.