What is the key difference between police patrol and fire alarm approaches to oversight? From your perspective, is any one more effective than the other for achieving an understanding about program effectiveness?

What will be an ideal response?

Police patrol oversight describes the effort to routinize oversight of agencies in the effort of identifying problems with implementation (e.g., review of impact of social program). Fire alarm oversight describes how legislators respond to executive branch problems as they arise (e.g., emerging scandal). An appropriate response to the subjective response may comment that the police patrol strategy is more aligned with continuous improvement of the program (therefore being the more effective strategy).