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Part IThe Nature and Setting of Police

AdministrationChapter 1

Introduction toPolice Administration

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Learning Objectives

1. Understand the importance that administration plays in the operation of a police department.

2. Develop a familiarity with the roles of management and organization in police administration.

3. Discuss the role of supervisors, commanders, and administrators in the police organization.

4. Know the different goals of police organizations and how police departments attempt to fulfill goals and objectives.

5. Understand the different historical eras of policing and how the police functioned within each of these eras.

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How the Police Is a Unique Institution• Work

– Diversity of roles and tasks– Charged with a lot of responsibilities

• Authority– Can arrest and use deadly force

• Availability– Expected to operate 24/7

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What Is an Organization?

• A group of people working together to accomplish a goal• The goal legitimizes the organization.

– Suboptimization occurs when individuals concentrate on their own objectives without considering the overall goal.

• Consciously coordinated– Implies management

• Social entity– Composed of people who interact with each other

• Relatively identifiable boundary– Jurisdiction or service population

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The Police Department as an Organization• Line personnel

– Perform fundamental police activities or supervise them• Staff personnel

– Help line personnel by providing support or assistance• Boundaries

– The department’s goals and the people it serves

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What Is Administration?

• The general managing and organizing that occurs at the highest levels of an organization

• Establishes the department’s purposes, mission, policies, and procedures

• Develops ways of controlling the department so that personnel follow the guideposts

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Activities Associated with Administration• Planning• Organizing• Staffing• Directing• Coordinating• Reporting• Budgeting

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What Is Organization?

• The structuring and staffing of people in the department

• Facilitates working relationships and goal attainment

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What Is Management?

• The processes administrators, middle managers, and supervisors use to give an organization direction

• Used to influence people to work toward organizational goals

• The actions taken by administrators to implement decisions and policies

• Consists of activities designed to induce cooperation and facilitate work

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Management Levels

• The typical police organization resembles a military structure– Administrators (chief, assistant chief, majors)– Commanders or midlevel managers (captains and

lieutenants)– Supervisors (sergeants)

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The Role of Managers

• Assist employees by providing the equipment and technical support necessary for the employee to function effectively

• Clarify tasks and guide the employee to become more effective– Give direction– Issue policies, procedures, and orders– Develop employees

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Aspects of Management

• Organizational maintenance– Activities that maintain the department’s ability to respond to public

needs– Includes: staffing, training, and organizational development– Enables the department to be in a better position to respond to

situations• Adaptation

– Public expectations and needs are constantly changing.– The department must change and adapt with the public.– Effective administrators are understanding visionaries.

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How Police Departments Differ From Other Organizations• Only the police possess legitimate arrest power and

authority within our society.• Police departments are government organizations.

– Public organizations exist within a political environment.– Governmental agencies do not have a profit motive.– The government is involved in the provision of services, not goods.– Bureaucratic governmental rules stymie creativity and flexibility.– Government has limited, inflexible resources.– A government must answer to its many and diverse citizens.

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Problems of the Service Industry

• Intangible product• Must have built-in flexibility for responding to

differing service needs• Higher degree of customer participation• Must have immediate response timing• Labor-intensive

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Police Departments’ Mission

• A mission statement gives the department’s purpose.• Notifies and educates people about the department’s

values• Establishes what is important• Establishes a yardstick with which to measure

successes and failures• Serves as a guide to establishing training and other

socialization programs

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The Roles Served by Police Departments• Order maintenance

– Focus on order by intervening in fights, etc.• Service

– Assisting citizens with problems• Law enforcement

– Focus on arrests and citations

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What Are Goals?

• The specific results or achievements toward which the police organization directs its efforts

• Conditions or benchmarks the organization desires to achieve

• State of affairs the organization strives to realize• Directly tied to the mission and roles of the organization

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Police Mission in the Political Era

• Characterized as political, decentralized arms of the local politicians

• Politicians dictated what laws were enforced, who was hired and who was promoted.

• Primary roles of police:– Order maintenance– Provision of services to community

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Police Mission in theProgressive Reform Era• Shift from order maintenance and provision of services

to law enforcement or crime fighting• Police given sole responsibility for crime reduction• Police used unethical means to meet public expectations• Police and public became adversaries

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Police Mission in the Professional Era• Police became professional law enforcers• Activities outside of law enforcement were

viewed as chores• Service role deemphasized

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Police Mission in the Community Relations Era• Responded to increased violence by deepening role as crime

fighters• Emphasis placed on arrests, citations and restoring order

through force• Created isolation from community

– Large minority population distrusted police and were uncooperative when confronted by police.

– Crime is usually highest in minority communities.• Police departments implemented public and community

relations programs.

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The Return to Law and Order

• Community relations programs of the ‘60s and ‘70s evolved into crime prevention programs.

• Drug and crime wars persisted.• Some police began to recognize that law enforcement—

in combination with social services—was a more effective strategy.

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The Community Policing Era

• Embraced by politicians and police toward the end of the ’80s and into the ’90s

• Uses participatory management, geographic stability of assignment, and community involvement

• Police engaged in diverse programs and tactics with the objective of developing a partnership with citizens to solve crimes

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Beyond 9/11: Policing and Homeland Security• For a police agency to be successful at catching terrorists, it

must have positive relations with citizens and communities.• Local police are working more closely with state and federal

agencies to collect intelligence and coordinate responses to threats.

• Police departments are increasing their own intelligence operations.

• Police are focusing on critical infrastructure vital to government and business.