CSI in the tropics: Experimental evidence of improved public service delivery through coordination

Seeking to increase judicial efficiency, the District Attorney’s Office of Colombia developed and implemented a new policy that restructured its murder investigation procedure to avoid the loss of information between public servants and increase coordination and leadership. Specifically, fixed investigative teams of lab experts, detectives and a district attorney were created to handle homicide cases from the initial investigation until the bill of indictment.

2016-01-20

2016-12-04

Our main outcomes are actions and decisions taken by the CSIs, detectives, and the prosecution. We use the Prosecution Office outcomes to measure performance: indictment, bill of charges, sentence and conviction rates.

Indictment: The suspect(s) was (were) formally charged with the commission of the crime.
Bill of charges: A formal written document accusing the suspect(s) of having committed a crime is filed.
Sentence: Cases that had a sentence, although the defendant was not necessarily found guilty.
Conviction: Cases in which the defendant was found guilty.

In order to randomly allocate homicide cases between treatment and control groups, in cooperation with the Prosecution Office we placed strict rotation rules on the investigative teams on call for each shift. The first step was to form six fixed investigative units (nine lab experts, five detectives, and a prosecutor) that would cover the city of Bogota. Four of the groups were assigned to a treatment status via a simple raffle.

For teams of functionaries, simple raffle in front of the public servants. For homicide cases, rotation rules between investigative teams shifts guarantee random allocation of homicides to the treatment and control groups.

Homicide case.

No

668 shifts

Close to 1500 cases

Control group: close to 500; Treatment group: close to 1000

From our power calculations we obtained an average Minimum Detectable Effect (MDE) of 0.13 Standard Deviation (SD) for the indictment and an average MDE of 0.14 SD for the bill of charges, the two main outcomes of the program.

Pre-Analysis Plan

This paper evaluates the impacts of increased coordination, accountability, and leadership among teams of responsible public officials, with evidence from homicide investigations in Colombia. We randomly assigned the investigations of 66% of the 1,683 homicides occurring in Bogotá, Colombia, during 2016 to a new investigation procedure emphasizing these features. We find a statistically significant 30% increase in the conviction rate in the treatment group relative to the control group. Indicators of the quality of the investigative process also improve, as well as the rate at which a formal accusation is presented before a court. Complementary findings suggest that the treatment produces well-coordinated teams that can communicate more fluently. Also, a survey of investigative team members reveals that work motivation, the extent to which they receive feedback on their performance, the pertinence and effectiveness of their roles, and the perceived quality and coordination of the team all improve under the new scheme.

Daniela Collazos & Leopoldo Fergusson & Miguel La Rota & Daniel Mejía & Daniel Ortega, 2020. "CSI in the tropics Experimental evidence of improved public service delivery through coordination," Documentos CEDE 2020-20, Universidad de los Andes - CEDE.

https://ideas.repec.org/p/col/000089/018206.html