The impact of performance culture on criminal justice agencies in England and Wales

The introduction of performance culture within public services has been the object of considerable analysis and evaluation in the last decade.While public sector organizations have been subject to a greater or lesser extent to the disciplines of New Public Management (NPM), the impact of performance culture on criminal justice agencies has not been the focus of the same degree of analysis. This is understandable, if only because reform of criminal justice agencies came late in the day, proving to be the last public sector bodies to be subjected to private sector disciplines by the Conservative Government. It was only in the early 1990s that the lower courts and the police, for example, were identified as suitable services for reform. Indeed, as late as 1987, the then Home Secretary Douglas Hurd was to publicly reject the introduction of the private sector provision into prison administration.