Process performance improvement in justice organizations-Pitfalls of performance measurement

The paper focuses on the problems and pitfalls of process performance measurement in justice organizations and the possible negative on process performance. The characteristics and pitfalls of process performance measurement in justice organizations are analyzed with two case studies conducted in two Finnish courts. The empirical findings are compared to the attributes of a good performance measurement system adopted from the literature. It is found that the main areas needing attention in judicial performance measurement are: understanding the causal relationships, improving the informativeness of used measures, improving the role of the measures as communication devices, and using the measures as incentives for improvement. On the basis of these findings, some potential solutions for improving performance measurement in public sector professional organizations are offered. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.