CHAPTER 6 Functions of Police Management

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

• Cite the six basic functions of police management. • Identify the three management functions that are primarily performed by top-level managers. • Explain the importance of system learning for organizational effectiveness. • Identify the five steps in the planning process. • Identify four types of police plans. • Identify six separate staffing functions. • Explain the importance of “prevailing mythology” for recruitment. • Identify four major activities within the training function. • Distinguish assessment centers from other techniques used in the promotion process. • Identify four activities that comprise the directing function.

What do people who are called managers do? What are their primary respon- sibilities? A review of the literature on management functions shows that author- ities have different answers to these questions. Acronyms such as PODSCORB (Planning, Organizing, Directing, Staffing, Coordinating, Reporting, Budgeting)1 and POSTBECPIRD (Planning, Organizing, Staffing, Training, Budgeting, Equipment, Coordination, Public Information, Reporting, Directing)2 were proposed years ago by management theorists in order to define management functions. Sayles identified three basic managerial functions: participation in external work flows through lateral inter- action; leading; and monitoring.3 Eastman and Eastman saw the functions of manage- ment as planning, organizing, assembling resources, directing, and controlling.4 Koontz and O’Donnell agreed, but substituted the word “staffing” for the term “assembling resources.”5

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In this chapter we will discuss six basic police management functions:

1. system building;

2. planning;

3. organizing;

4. staffing;

5. directing;

6. controlling.

Performing these management functions skillfully and knowledgeably is critically important. Aside from the obvious benefits accruing to departmental professionalism and stability, the legal concept of vicarious liability has placed significantly greater demands on police managers.6 In instances in which police chiefs or other police man- agers improperly perform certain management functions, or negligently fail to perform those functions, they can be sued for improperly discharging the duties of their offices.7 The growth of the concept of vicarious liability serves as a reminder of the importance of proper performance of police management functions and adds a measure of accountabil- ity not previously experienced by most police managers.

Management Functions by Level in the Organization

To some extent, every manager in the police organization performs the six man- agement functions of system building, planning, organizing, staffing, directing, and controlling. However, the relative importance of the functions varies, depending on the manager’s level in the police organization.

Managers at the chief administrative level in a police agency are obviously responsible for the successful performance of all six management functions. It is their responsibility to ensure that the department achieves its goals and objectives as fully as possible, that the department abides by the law, and is responsive to its community. Police chiefs, in particular, can never delegate responsibility for any of the six management functions. Responsibility for the six is uniquely theirs.

By the same token, police chiefs must delegate authority as discussed in Chapter 5, including managerial authority. Except in the smallest departments, chiefs must delegate some of the authority and some of the work involved in system building, planning, organizing, staffing, directing, and controlling to subordinate managers at the command and supervisory levels.

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Delegation of authority to lower levels of management to perform the three functions of staffing, directing, and controlling is essential. This is not to say that these functions are any less important than the other three, but rather that they are more appropriately performed by subordinate managers. The staffing function should be assigned to a command-level manager, except in small agencies, in which the chief will perform most staffing tasks. Directing and controlling are the basic elements of every manager’s job throughout the police department. Commanders and supervisors must be primarily concerned with making certain that their direct subordinates know how to perform their jobs and that they perform them effectively and productively.

These three functions—staffing, directing, and controlling—can be thought of as operating the organization, and making sure that the organization runs according to design. They primarily depend on managers’ technical and human skills; that is, on their expertise in doing the work of the organization and their skills in dealing with people. The other three management functions—system building, planning, and organizing— are more concerned with formulating and constructing the design of the organization in the first place. These latter three functions, therefore, are less amenable to delegation. Developing the overall departmental design and deciding on goals and priorities and how best to achieve them are functions best performed at the chief administrative level in the police agency. These functions depend heavily on conceptual skills—“the ability to see the enterprise as a whole” and to see “how changes in any one part affect all the others.”8

System Building

In the ideal organizational setting, in which the systems approach to management has traditionally been applied, it might not be necessary to address system building as a sepa- rate management function. However, in the police field, it is essential for administrators to realize that many police problems have evolved specifically because police administra- tors have developed their organizations without paying attention to systems concepts.9

The systems theory is so foreign to some police administrators and so basic to the development of sound organizations universally, that special emphasis must be placed on system building: what it is and how it can be used. Although some police administrators build good systems instinctively, few really have understood all of the ramifications of what they have been doing. System building has been isolated in this chapter as one of the six primary management functions because the other five primary functions are totally dependent on it for their implementation.

In part, system building simply means constructing coherent systems that take inputs, process them, and produce outputs that meet the goals and objectives of the police department. Other management functions are concerned with components of this responsibility. Staffing, for example, attempts to ensure that the organization has

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the numbers and kinds of people needed as employees to process inputs into outputs by doing the work of the agency. Directing is concerned with making sure that employees know what they are supposed to do and how to do it. What distinguishes system building is its focus on the entire management system and its application of systems concepts.

Carrying out the management function of system building requires that the police executive give considerable attention to four interrelated systems concepts: the interde- pendence of elements in a system; the organizational environment; the key role played by feedback; and the need for ongoing adaptation, learning, and change.

Interdependence The various parts of a system are interdependent, meaning that each part affects the

others. Consequently, a change made in one part of a system is likely to have an impact on another part. In addition, because police departments are open systems, changes occur- ring outside the organization are likely to affect the police system’s inputs, processes, and outputs. An important managerial responsibility is to anticipate and manage these interactive effects so that the effectiveness of the police agency is not hampered by external changes.

Sometimes it is obvious that new inputs or changes in the environment are likely to affect the police organization. Major changes in inputs include new employees, budget cuts, a new police facility, new types of information made available by develop- ing technology, or new departmental responsibilities, such as homeland security tasks. Environmental changes could include newly elected political officials, a downturn in the economy, annexation of additional land area, or new laws passed by the legislature. Most police managers could and would anticipate that changes of this magnitude might affect various parts of the police organizational system. These managers should then take the necessary actions to keep their systems functioning as effectively as possible, regardless of the changes that face the agency.

Sometimes, relatively insignificant changes can have surprising effects. One com- petent police chief who managed his department from a systems perspective learned very quickly the importance of seemingly insignificant factors when he decided that it would be in the best interests of departmental efficiency if he moved the office of a civilian employee from one area of the police station to another. His decision was made purely on the basis of a need to utilize space more effectively; the decision was made in keeping with the goals and objectives he had established for his department. The civilian employee was a responsible person who had complete authority over the department’s fiscal affairs. When the chief announced that her office was to be moved, she construed it as a personal affront, a reflection on her abilities, and an attempt to downgrade her status. She became extremely emotional and expressed her outrage to family and friends. Her husband became so concerned about her condition that he came to the police station and

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personally registered a complaint with the chief. The woman’s work suffered as a result, and she sought employment elsewhere.

After much deliberation, the chief finally decided to reverse the original order to move the woman’s office and made every conceivable effort to explain a mistake for which he took total blame. The woman was satisfied, her work output became better than ever, and her feelings toward the chief were warm and friendly.

In another, smaller department, the hiring of several zealous young officers over a two- to three-year period gradually changed the personnel makeup and its operational style. What had been a service-oriented and community-oriented police agency became a much more legalistic and enforcement-oriented one. Had this gradual evolution matched corresponding changes in the community or its political leadership, the effects might have been positive. In this instance, however, police–community conflict devel- oped, and the chief eventually became discredited and lost his job. He either misjudged the needs of his community or failed to monitor and manage the effects of new inputs to the system.

Environment As open systems, police organizations interact with their environments. Changes

in the police organizational environment can have important effects on police system functioning, as noted above; thus, a crucial aspect of system building and police adminis- tration involves managing these effects. In addition, police executives should seek positive inputs from their environments; constantly monitor changes in the environment; and, when possible, attempt to modify the environment for the benefit of their communities and police departments.

Among the inputs that police departments need from their environments are fiscal resources, material goods, job applicants, new creative ideas, and community and polit- ical support. Part of system building, then, involves seeking fiscal resources through the budget process, grants, and other sources; obtaining needed equipment and, when appropriate, encouraging research and development efforts to produce better equipment; attracting sufficient numbers of the best possible applicants for both sworn and civilian positions; identifying new concepts, techniques, and ideas, and bringing them into the police organization; and developing and sustaining moral support and active assistance within the community and among the political leadership. Performing these aspects of system building helps contribute to healthy system functioning by maintaining a steady flow of new energy into the system.

To secure these kinds of inputs for their organizations, and to anticipate external changes that might affect their organizations, police executives should constantly monitor their environments. This means that they, or their staffs, should keep up with changes in the community, technological developments, social changes, legislative proposals, and

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political trends. They must also keep abreast of developments within the field of policing by reading the literature, belonging to professional associations, attending professional meetings, monitoring important websites and list-serves, and keeping in touch with col- leagues who themselves are well informed. Their objective should be to take advantage of new developments, adapt when possible and, at the very least, prevent their departments from being surprised or embarrassed by important changes in the environment. Even when it is not possible for the police agency to avoid being affected adversely by some change in the environment, it is useful to be well informed and to have the opportunity to minimize any negative effects.

Sometimes organizations can take a more proactive role by modifying, rather than merely adapting to, their environments. They may be able to develop support in the community for new strategies of policing, prevent serious budget cuts, or press for needed legislation. One police chief, believing that career criminals were getting off too lightly, systematically championed a tougher approach to handling repeat offenders. He convinced the state to allocate funds for experimental programs, and he convinced other criminal justice officials in his area to cooperate with the police department on a coordi- nated new interagency initiative. In this instance, this police chief went beyond merely reacting to or adapting to his organization’s environment and was able to change the environment itself in a way that benefited the community and the police department.10

Feedback Construction of closed-loop systems that provide feedback is an essential aspect

of the system-building function of police management. It is also probably the most neglected aspect. Police executives tend to stop short of acquiring authoritative feedback. It is much easier for a police manager to ignore feedback than it is to aggressively seek feedback, some of which may identify his or her own shortcomings.

Any individual or organization truly concerned about effectiveness, excellence, quality, and serving the customer will have a great desire for feedback. Feedback can provide the information that is needed to determine which organizational components are operating properly and which are not. With feedback, executives can routinely correct system parts that are not working properly, reward those that are, and generally keep the enterprise on course.

What this means for police managers is that they must build and maintain systems that provide feedback. Mechanisms for providing feedback vary with each system and can include information systems, program evaluations, performance appraisals, inspections, internal affairs, customer surveys, and “management by walking around.”11 The use of feedback is typically within the context of one of the other management functions—to exercise control over improper conduct, for example, to provide clearer direction to employees, or to reorganize within the system in order to facilitate better coordination.

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Managers will only know that these kinds of actions are necessary, however, when systems have been built in such a way that they provide ongoing feedback.

Change and Organizational Learning Many capable police chiefs have exerted tremendous efforts in order to build

sound  organizational systems in their departments, only to discover serious prob- lems after only a few years. What these chiefs failed to understand was that system build- ing, like all of police administration, is a continuous process that is never completed. The world surrounding a police agency is always changing, as are the people within the police department. The shifts and duties that once satisfied a young patrol officer may not satisfy her as she grows older. The knowledge and skills of a police manager may evolve as she matures, gains experience, and receives additional training. Ideas change within the police profession regarding the most effective operational strategies, the viability of civil- ian review boards, the proper limits on high-speed pursuits, and other important matters. The community changes. Political administrations change. Society changes.

Because the police system and its environment are dynamic rather than static, a key aspect of system building is designing systems that can change, adapt to changes, and learn from their experiences.12 Many people improve with age by gaining experience and knowledge, which makes them wiser and savvier. Organizations can also change positively for even longer periods, if properly designed and maintained. As one veteran police chief put it, “an organization that is learning to learn together can sustain itself.”13

Two considerations pertinent to system change and adaptation have already been dis- cussed—the environment and feedback. An additional consideration is system learning. The most effective systems are those in which lessons are learned and not forgotten, and in which lessons learned in one part of the system are shared throughout the system.14 Lessons are embodied in formal systems and written policies and can be preserved in his- tories, diaries, slogans, and files. Sharing of lessons can be accomplished through various ways, such as cooperation, teamwork, newsletters, and training.15

Over the long term, the most effective organizations will have these properties:

1. positive interchanges with their environments;

2. continuous monitoring of their environments;

3. proactive modification of their environments;

4. systematic feedback;

5. ongoing adaptation to internal and external changes;

6. shared learning among elements of the organization;

7. mechanisms that preserve and update system learning.

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One of the primary functions of police management is to build systems within the police organization that have these properties. When successfully accomplished, police agencies will not only function effectively, they will also adapt over time through changes to maintain their effectiveness.

Planning

Planning is a future-oriented, proactive management function. One plans in order to prepare for the future. Organizations plan so that when a decision has to be made or an action has to be taken, they will be prepared. The decision or action itself tends to be driven by a short-term focus. If effective planning has previously taken place, though, a longer-term perspective has already helped identify the choices that employees have.

Much of our future activity is planned by us or by someone else. Your course in police administration was planned by your instructor. It was planned or scheduled to meet at a certain time on certain days of the week by the dean of your college. It is probably within your plans to graduate from college and to be successful in your career. Perhaps you plan to get married and have a family. One day you may plan to buy a home. You may even plan for your own children to go to college. Plans are preparations for future expectations and are the means by which you will meet your goals and objectives.

Planning is perhaps the most analytical aspect of management. It requires a certain amount of foresight and creativity, and a willingness to dedicate sufficient time to the planning process. However, police culture tends to be action-oriented, often seeking a quick fix. Consequently, police organizations often confront problems only when it is too late and they have become crises.

Effective planning is especially crucial for the police. The protection of lives and prop- erty and the maintenance of order in the community depend on the police responding at the right time, and taking appropriate actions. In our complex and rapidly changing society, only careful planning can make this possible. For example, if a police adminis- trator has not properly staffed patrol shifts, there is a distinct possibility that not all calls for service can be handled. In one Eastern city with a population of 360,000 people, 15,000 calls for service per year went unanswered because of a lack of available personnel during peak workload times. This was a serious matter that reflected poor planning; the department had enough personnel, they just were not allocated properly.

Planning frequently begins with the identification of a problem. The problem may be identified by a patrol officer, the chief, a clerk in the records division, a citizen, or by anyone else, either inside or outside the organization. If the authority-level principle has been applied to the department, the planning involved in solving many problems will be relatively simple and will not require the attention of specialized planners or a planning unit. Planning is an important part of every supervisor’s and manager’s job.

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Only problems that require extensive research and cannot be solved at any working level within the police department should be referred to the planning unit, if there is one, which should be responsible for studying specific problems that are not easily solved and presenting solutions to these problems in the form of plans that can either be accepted or rejected by the chief.

The planning unit itself should have very broad responsibilities and be involved in studying every aspect of the department. It should periodically examine every procedure and every operation within the department to determine if these are operating effectively and efficiently. The planning unit should be self-starting, proceeding on its own without waiting for direction from the chief, but in no way precluding his or her involvement in the planning process.

An excellent vehicle for undertaking an organizational self-assessment is the accredi- tation program run by the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA).16 Even if a department elects not to take part in the formal accreditation program, the standards promulgated by CALEA provide useful benchmarks by which to judge the department’s current practices.17

Questions such as the following might be asked when examining procedures and operations:

1. Is this really necessary?

2. Should this be eliminated?

3. How could this be done better?

4. Could this be done less expensively?

5. If a change were made, what would the result be?

6. Has another police department found a way of doing this better?

The Planning Process Regardless of whether planning is conducted by a separate planning unit or by an

individual police manager, the planning process includes five steps:

1. ends analysis;

2. forecasting;

3. means analysis;

4. implementation;

5. evaluation.

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The first step, ends analysis, focuses either on the kinds of problems described previ- ously or on the organization’s mission, goals, and objectives. Whichever is the case, ends analysis simply identifies the purpose of the planning exercise—the problem that needs to be solved or the goal that needs to be achieved. Problems are sometimes identified by organizational members and sometimes by members of the community or other repre- sentatives of the police agency’s environment. Similarly, goals may be developed by the police department or they may be thrust onto the department from outside. Problems and goals may be well defined or vague, well understood or poorly understood. An important aspect of ends analysis is to gather as much information about the problem or goal as possible. This involves analyzing the situation in order to describe it (who, what, when, where, how) and, if possible, explain it (why).

Once problems or goals have been identified in the planning process, an important next step to undertake is forecasting. This is the point at which planning becomes explic- itly future-oriented. Planners must recognize that while problems exist in the present, solutions will be implemented and goals will be achieved in the future. Thus, planners should seek information about the future context within which their forecasted solutions will be applied. One good resource for police planners at the forecasting stage is the Society of Police Futurists International.18

Oftentimes plans will be implemented just a few days or weeks into the future, in which case it may be reasonable to assume that little will have changed. However, other plans have longer duration. Suppose, for example, that a police department’s deployment plans are revised annually. These plans deploy patrol resources around the community based on the previous year’s workload. If, in formulating these plans, planners were to ignore a new shopping mall about to be completed or serious impending budget cuts, their deployment plans for the upcoming year could be seriously flawed. The entire department’s efforts to protect life and property and maintain order might be jeopardized.

Once ends have been identified and forecasting has taken place, alternatives must be explored and studied through means analysis. Every aspect of a matter must be thor- oughly researched and considered before a final plan is devised. It is crucial to conduct a wide search for alternative solutions. Existing alternatives can sometimes be found within the organization; more often, however, other police departments can be located that have already developed and tested alternatives in response to similar problems or goals. Competent police planners take maximum advantage of the efforts and experiences of other agencies in order to avoid spending considerable time “reinventing the wheel.”19 These existing alternatives can be uncovered through personal contacts, professional organizations, published material, and the Internet. The International Association of Law Enforcement Planners (IALEP) is a particularly good resource.20

Once alternatives have been chosen and put in the form of a strategy, policy, program, or plan, they must be systematically implemented and carefully evaluated. Implementation is often overlooked to the detriment of perfectly good planning; many

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well developed and carefully thought-out police programs and plans have either failed or never really been tried due to lack of implementation.21 What is required for implemen- tation is simply the remaining management functions of organizing, staffing, directing, and controlling. Many times, however, as soon as the design of the program or plan is completed, the police organization’s attention turns to the next problem or goal, and only later do managers realize that implementation was a failure.

Finally, evaluation of the planning product provides information about whether the problem was solved, whether the goal was achieved, and whether adjustments are needed. Simply stated, evaluation is feedback to close the loop of the planning system. With feedback, rational adjustments and decisions can be made.22 Without feedback, the police organization is just hoping that things will turn out all right.

Types of Police Plans It is important to realize that planning is an ongoing process consisting of ends anal-

ysis, forecasting, means analysis, implementation, evaluation, and more planning. It is somewhat risky to present information on types of plans, because you may be diverted into thinking that the plan itself, the document on the shelf, marks the end of the plan- ning process. In fact, the plan has value only to the extent that it affects real-world actions, and even then the process continues as the actions are evaluated and the planning process begins anew.

Nevertheless, plans do exist in police agencies and should be recognized. Because police work is enormously varied, there is potentially a wide range of types of police plans. Four basic types are:23

1. reactive plans;

2. contingency plans;

3. operational efficiency plans;

4. strategic plans.

Reactive plans are probably more common in police departments, and in many other kinds of organizations, than any other type. Reactive planning occurs in response to a crisis or a decision forced on the department from the outside. Police agencies have engaged in reactive planning, for example, in response to federal legislation governing employment of disabled and older persons.24 Departments have no choice but to plan for how they will adhere to these laws.

Contingency plans vary in their breadth and focus but have in common an attempt to prepare in advance for possible occurrences. A plan to deal with burglars caught in a

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building would be a contingency plan. This kind of plan is often formalized as a policy, procedure, or special operations order. Other kinds of contingency plans typically deal with natural and human-caused disasters, such as hurricanes, that can result in extreme damage. These types of situations call for massive coordinated responses that are difficult to make up on the spot. Contingency plans can also be more administrative in nature, such as a plan for the possibility of a major budget cut.

Operational efficiency plans seek to improve routine operations. Some are pre- pared on a regular basis, such as annual allocation and deployment plans that analyze workload information to determine how best to utilize departmental resources. Others are prepared on more of a special basis, such as a plan to increase the collection and sub- mission of fingerprint evidence by patrol officers and detectives. Operational efficiency plans may be developed in response to perceived problems in the organization or simply as part of an ongoing effort to improve efficiency and effectiveness.

Strategic plans are the broadest of the four types of police plans and usually are the longest lasting. They deal with the police organization’s mission and primary goals and objectives and identify an overall strategy for accomplishing them.25 Strategic plans provide a picture of the kind of organization the police department wants to be and a roadmap for getting there.26 This picture and map help the members of the organization and the community understand where they are and why certain practices and changes are being undertaken. Good strategic plans that are well communicated help police exec- utives fulfill some of their most important and most difficult leadership responsibilities. They provide the “big picture” that many people, police officers included, sometimes have a difficult time grasping.

Organizing

Organizing is the process of grouping like functions, of putting together the sub- systems of an organization in order to achieve maximum efficiency, effectiveness, and productivity, while meeting organizational goals and objectives. The subsystems of any organization must be arranged so that they can work well with one another. In police organizations, the key organizer is the chief of police. A chief who is unable to organize the police department properly, using the systems approach as a basis for organiza- tional efforts, will achieve little success in meeting goals and objectives. As Mooney and Reilly have pointed out, “it is inconceivable that a poor organizer can make a good manager.”27

Organizing is not a simple process. It takes time, effort, and energy. It also takes skill, considerable patience, and a willingness to apply organizational principles to the process of organizing. Inevitably, it also requires a balancing act between competing interests: centralization versus decentralization of authority; specialists versus generalists; flatter

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hierarchies versus wider spans of control; unity of command versus practical necessities; formal versus informal communications; and so on. There are not many universal rules to follow to resolve these issues, only the kinds of general organizational principles presented in Chapter 5.

The nature of jobs to be performed is one important input to the organizing process. Each job must be carefully assessed and placed into a position within the organization where, grouped together with other similar functions, it can be performed most effec- tively. Specific jobs are the basis for the establishment of bureaus, divisions, units, squads, teams, and other subgroupings within the organization.

In organizing a police department, the objectives of the organization must be kept clearly in mind by the organizer. Although all police departments have the maintenance of order and the protection of life and property as primary goals, the priorities and exact content of their other goals and objectives might differ. For example, the kinds of noncriminal regulations enforced by the police might differ greatly from community to community. In cities and towns that have a private ambulance service or ambulance service provided by the fire department, the police are considerably relieved of the respon- sibility for serving the needs of the sick and injured. In jurisdictions where numerous social services are available to citizens, the services that need to be supplied by the police are drastically reduced. Organization, therefore, is a situational process that depends on the accurate identification of varying organization inputs. The process depends on the application of the basic principles of police organization (see Chapter 5). This involves providing for the grouping of like functions, assigning functions to appropriate subsys- tems, delegating authority, and coordinating overall effort.

The output of the organizing process is the organization itself. It includes grouped functions, delegated authority, assigned activities, and overall coordination. Feedback on the organization itself can vary considerably. In the broadest sense, the effectiveness of the organization can be measured in terms of its accomplishment of goals and objectives. In a narrower sense, its effectiveness can be gauged in various ways, such as whether workers have the necessary authority to do their jobs, whether they exhibit confusion over the identity of their immediate superiors, or whether, within units, each worker’s tasks are relatively similar.

In order for continuous feedback to be made available to the organizer, or the chief, it must be understood by everyone from the chief on down that the organization in its present form is not sacred and may be changed. Even if everyone believes the unlikely assumption that the organization is functioning perfectly today, the possibility of its malfunctioning tomorrow is entirely likely. System inputs such as people, jobs, goals, and objectives change frequently. In order to accommodate these changes in input, the organ- ization must be regularly scrutinized for signs that it is no longer capable of attaining its objectives. The scrutiny must be designed so that the results in the form of feedback are introduced as input to the organizer.

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It must also be understood that the organization is much more than a chart on the wall. Organizations should not be thought of as simple, unchanging groups of homoge- neous people working together with computer-like efficiency. Rather, as Leavitt suggests, organizations are “rich, volatile, complicated but understandable systems of tasks, struc- tures, tools and people in states of continuous change.”28

Staffing

Staffing involves the functions of recruiting, selecting, training, assigning, promot- ing, and terminating. These functions are often performed by a police department’s personnel division; they are of such extreme importance, however, that they come within the purview of the police chief ’s major duties.

As with all other basic functions of police management, staffing should be examined from a systems standpoint. Inputs to the staffing function are of three types. The people input includes both present employees as well as candidates for job openings. The jobs input involves the positions presently held by employees plus job openings. The objec- tives input is the standard or standards used to measure the performance expected from present and prospective employees.

The output of all staffing function activities (recruitment, selection, training, place- ment, promotion, and termination) is the staff itself. The staff does the work of the organ- ization; through its efforts, the organization either fails or succeeds. The importance of staffing should be apparent; it may well be the most important aspect of the police admin- istrative process.

Feedback in the staffing function is the evaluative tool by which the performance of people within an organization is measured. The methods used to achieve such feedback are often the subject of considerable controversy. In police departments not adminis- tered from a systems perspective, little or no effort is made to evaluate performance. Departments managed with a high degree of systems emphasis use some extremely com- plex and sophisticated performance evaluation procedures and various kinds of quantita- tive and qualitative evaluative methods.

By emphasizing factors of performance that are relevant to the department’s goals and objectives, the police administrator is indirectly exerting a degree of control over the organization. In effect, the administrator is saying, “These are activities that I consider to be important; if you perform these activities well, you will be rewarded.” A well-designed performance evaluation system, therefore, will be built around the department’s goals, objectives, and strategies. Today, these systems should reflect the community policing and intelligence-led policing strategies being adopted by many departments.29 If it is to be a viable system, it will attempt to isolate criteria that can be objectively evaluated, regard- less of the strategy chosen by the police department. Furthermore, everyone within the

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department should be fully apprised of exactly what these criteria are and precisely how they will be applied and weighted in the evaluation process. This matter of evaluating police performance is so important that we will consider it in more detail in Chapter 12.

Finally, in this discussion of feedback as an important element in the staffing func- tion, some consideration should be given to the need that police departments have to evaluate personnel strength requirements—that is, to determine how many sworn officers and other types of employees are needed. All too often in the past, the number of police officers needed in particular assignments or in specified geographical areas has been predicated on political and sometimes even emotional factors. By conducting a personnel requirements survey (sometimes called a workload study), based on actual activity and the time needed to perform it, a department will be armed with information that can be fed back into the staffing process as new input so that assignment adjustments can be made in terms of the department’s actual needs.

The inputs of people, jobs, and objectives are processed through recruitment, selec- tion, training, placement, promotion, and termination to produce an organization’s staff. Feedback is provided through performance evaluation of staff members and analysis of staff requirements. Although many aspects of the staffing function legitimately belong to the department’s personnel division, others are either the direct or indirect responsibility of each and every supervisor and manager.

Recruitment The first stage of the staffing process is recruitment. Somehow a police department

must persuade individuals to apply for position openings. This became a significant issue for police departments in the first decade of the 2000s, when a strong economy and increased military commitments seemed to cause a serious decline in the number of police applicants leading to a “recruitment crunch.”30 The economic slowdown that began in 2008 seems to have relieved this problem, though.

Generally, there are three categories of people who seek employment with a given organization:

1. people who are very interested in the position and who are eager to obtain it; 2. people who are not very interested in the position and who see it as one employment

alternative among many; 3. people who have no real interest in the position and who, because of their market-

ability, see it as their only employment alternative.31

Although one might assume that people in the first category would tend to perform better on the job than those in the other two groups, research fails to support such a contention. There is no simple correlation between reasons for seeking employment and

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applicants’ subsequent performance. It is clear, however, that the image of an organization is one important factor in attracting numerous applicants. Indeed, some police depart- ments seem to discourage applicants from applying. The low esteem in which police are held in some communities and the fictitious image of the TV cop are also factors in keeping qualified applicants away. Gellerman refers to this phenomenon as a “prevailing mythology” and suggests to the organization that it “prevents much of the available labor pool from passing through its evaluation process and compels it to make its selection from a much narrower segment of the population.”32 To help counteract this prevailing mythology at the national level, the IACP and the Bureau of Justice Assistance have estab- lished the website DiscoverPolicing.org. This website provides interesting information about various aspects of police work, helping to demonstrate that policing is a rewarding career and that police employment is open to all kinds of people.

The critical nature of the “prevailing mythology” for police recruiting should be a matter of concern to every police administrator. The arbitrary establishment of height, weight, eyesight, and other physical requirements is but one example of how the police ser- vice has effectively eliminated from consideration countless prospective candidates. Physical requirements in many police jurisdictions have been established at a level higher than requirements for entrance into West Point, Annapolis, and the Air Force Academy.

The unreasonableness of this situation is evidenced by the experience of a young col- lege student who was one of more than 1,000 applicants who applied for 100 openings in a state police organization. The young man successfully passed written, oral, and physical strength tests; he had only a physical examination to pass in order to be accepted into the service. In looking over the organization’s physical requirements, he noticed that it was necessary to have 28 teeth; he discovered, much to his amazement, that he had only 27. Panic-stricken, he discussed his problem with one of his police science instructors, a retired state police captain. The instructor called the state police physician who would be conducting the physical examination and asked whether a waiver could be obtained. The physician said no, but suggested that the man’s dentist make a one-tooth plate for him. The young man followed the suggestion and wore the plate on the day of the exam- ination. He passed the physical with no difficulty and was appointed as a trooper. The twenty-eighth tooth was never worn again and to this day remains in a bureau drawer, a reminder of a ridiculous physical requirement that could have cost him his job and the state police an otherwise highly acceptable candidate.

Federal legislation, including the Americans with Disabilities Act, has severely con- strained police use of arbitrary and indefensible physical standards in employment deci- sions.33 Even more than in the past, police agencies are now required to demonstrate that physical requirements are genuinely job-related, or bona fide occupational qualifications. Police departments must also now make “reasonable accommodations” for disabled employ- ees and applicants. The ultimate effect makes the police employment process fairer and less arbitrary. In the long run, this should benefit police agencies as well as individual applicants.

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MODERN POLICING BLOG Recruiting challenges in current climate April 22, 2015

This article discusses the impact of recent high-profile events on police recruitment. Attracting minor- ity applicants has become more difficult in some jurisdictions and the overall desirability of police employment in the eyes of young people may be suffering.

Source: The above is a reproduction of a post from the Modern Policing blog. The link to the post is https://gcordner.wordpress. com/2015/04/22/recruiting-challenges-in-current-climate/. The hyperlink at “This article” links to http://www.citylab.com/ crime/2015/04/who-wants-to-be-a-police-officer/391017/.

In addition to attracting a large number of job applicants, police departments must also engage in targeted recruitment. For example, many departments have few minority group employees in relation to the minority populations of the communities involved and must actively recruit such applicants to overcome past discrimination, whether overt or de facto. Such targeted recruiting may, in some instances, be court ordered through a consent decree. Targeted recruiting is an important component of any affirmative action program if a police department is sincere in its efforts to increase employment of women, racial or ethnic minorities, and other groups of protected workers.

One focus of targeted police recruiting over the past 25 years has been higher educa- tion. This emphasis has succeeded in raising the average educational level of police officers in the United States from little more than a high school degree to nearly two years of college.34 What was once considered a rather radical idea—that police officers should be college-educated—is now largely taken for granted. Few police departments absolutely require applicants to have higher education,35 but many give preference to applicants with college degrees and offer educational incentives to their current employees. Applicants without any college education can still compete for positions in most police agencies, but more and more they find themselves at a distinct disadvantage.

Selection The process of choosing from among applicants is called “selection.” Every applicant

for almost any type of job expects to be accepted or rejected as the result of some type of selection process.36 The typical police selection process includes multiple steps and criteria (see “Police Selection,” Box 6.1),37 with the most time-consuming and expensive steps held to last, when the number of candidates has been reduced by eliminating applicants who are ineligible or obviously unqualified.

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One theory of the selection process emphasizes the person; accordingly, the most mature, intelligent, stable applicant should be selected, without particular regard for the position to be filled. Hrand Saxenian, a former professor at the Harvard Business School and a prominent management consultant, is one advocate of this theory. To Saxenian, maturity is the single most important criterion in the selection process. He has attempted, with some success, to measure maturity by determining the extent to which persons can express their own feelings and convictions while showing sincere consideration for the thoughts and feelings of others.38

In an experiment conducted with one large state police organization, Saxenian interviewed all 50 recruits undergoing 12 weeks of training at the police academy. The recruits were then ranked for maturity from 1 to 50 according to Saxenian’s system of measurement. At the end of the 12-week training period, the academy staff ranked the recruits from 1 to 50 on the basis of their overall performance while in training. The two sets of rankings were remarkably similar and statistically showed a very high degree of cor- relation. Follow-up studies several years later verified the statistical validity of Saxenian’s original findings. The recruits singled out by Saxenian as being the most mature were by far the best performers.

Another theory of the selection process emphasizes the job to be filled rather than the person selected to fill it. The advocates of this theory believe that some jobs require particular skills and abilities that cannot be easily learned. The major problem with

BOX 6.1 Police Selection

Steps Related Issues

Recruitment Advertising, requests, referrals

Selection criteria Age, height, weight, vision, criminal record,

residency

Written examination General intelligence or job content

Physical examination Agility, endurance, strength

Personal interview Communication skills, interpersonal style, decision

making ability

Psychological testing and interview Emotional stability, personality profile

Background investigation Character, employment/credit history, education,

references, criminal record

Polygraph examination Character, background information, truthfulness

Medical examination and drug testing General health, specific problems

Source: Roy Roberg, Kenneth Novak, Gary Cordner, and Brad Smith. 2015. Police & Society, sixth

edition. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, p. 204.

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this approach is the difficulty of testing for these skills and abilities. One could say, for example, that order maintenance depends on an innate ability to manage conflict. Some officers are more naturally inclined toward peacekeeping responsibilities than are others. The problem arises in the development of a testing instrument to determine which applicants have ability in this sensitive area of concern. Little significant effort has been made in the police field to validate entry-level testing in this way. Until this is done to the satisfaction of police administrators everywhere, problems will persist in the attempt to find applicants who can be neatly fitted into specialized job slots.

One major problem with the job-oriented approach is that it tends to emphasize mechanical and quantifiable aspects of the job. Typically, a job analysis is performed to determine the content of the job and the knowledge, abilities, skills, and other charac- teristics needed to perform the job. This is a well-established procedure in the personnel field, but it works better if the job is clearly defined and routine. Police work, with all its ambiguity and complexity, is not a good occupation for the procedure. Police job analy- ses have usually resulted in selection criteria that emphasize physical traits (such as body strength to overpower a prisoner), mechanical skills (such as high-speed driving), and rudimentary knowledge (such as reading and writing), rather than such personal charac- teristics as maturity and good judgment. The former are easier to quantify, measure, and defend in court, but perhaps are less important to real success in police work.39

Both selection-process theories have merit. The wide variety of duties that police officers perform, coupled with the innumerable talents and abilities needed to perform them, suggest that the entrance-level selection process must necessarily focus both on the person and on the job. Police administrators in recent years have begun to place more emphasis on selecting personnel on the basis of personal qualities such as common sense, intelligence, ability to verbalize, good judgment, and maturity. It is assumed, with considerable justification, that an applicant with these basic characteristics can be trained to perform the endless number of tasks that a police officer is expected to perform. Most  specific job skills are learned after an applicant is accepted as a police officer, not before.

The psychological screening of applicants has recently become a major part of the selection process in a number of police departments.40 Because police work is a difficult, demanding, and stressful occupation, it is becoming increasingly evident that applicants who are stress-prone should be identified early in the selection process and screened out. Although much more empirical research is needed before we can easily identify such people, we do know that those who have not learned “healthy coping behaviors,”41 such as continuing involvement in regular exercise and participation in hobbies and sports, are prime candidates for stress. We also know that unhealthy coping, such as smoking, exces- sive drinking, lack of exercise, limited non-job-related interests, and inordinate amounts of television watching or Internet surfing are stress indicators that can and should be determined during the selection process.

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While police selection methods in the professional era tended to emphasize “screen- ing out” applicants with background or psychological problems, a stronger effort has been made under community policing to “screen in” applicants with particularly desirable characteristics.42 The same can also be said for intelligence-led policing. Such desirable traits include higher education, varied life experience, cognitive problem-solving skills, communication skills including listening, and good interpersonal relations, such as empathy and respect for others.

In addition to the particular mix of skills and qualities on which police depart- ments base their selection decisions, there are important considerations that transcend traditional police practices. It is important for police administrators to understand that, regardless of their own predispositions with respect to hiring practices, federally estab- lished selection guidelines must be followed and their own selection processes adjusted to support them.43 The best way for a police department to insure equitable hiring practices is to fully adopt the philosophy of the Police Foundation, that “it is clearly desirable, con- sistent with America’s democratic principles, that police agencies have a healthy balance of people representing the range of citizenry in the communities those agencies serve.”44

Training Once selected, a new employee enters the training stage of the staffing process. Loen

has identified four major training activities:

1. a basic orientation, outlining organizational goals and objectives;

2. a planned, scheduled training program aimed at teaching new personnel how to perform tasks expected of them;

3. an organized in-service training effort directed toward upgrading personnel;

4. a self-development training program designed to encourage personnel to develop themselves professionally.45

The first two of these activities are generally referred to as “recruit training” in the police world, and typically involve both in-class and on-the-job training, also known as “field training.” Many police departments are too small to support their own recruit training programs, and therefore send newly hired officers to regional or state training academies. In-service training is provided to a greater or lesser degree by many depart- ments—more progressive police agencies provide at least one week of in-service training a year for each police officer, and many states require at least one week every two years. Some departments take advantage of excellent in-service training courses offered by organizations such as state and regional training academies, the IACP, the Federal Bureau

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of Investigation, the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, and the Southern Police Institute at the University of Louisville. In-service police training is available extensively almost everywhere. A department need only take advantage of the wide range of training opportunities.

The fourth training activity, self-development, was strongly encouraged in the 1960s and 1970s through the establishment of the Law Enforcement Education Program (LEEP) of the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA), a federally funded effort that paid the tuition of more than 100,000 in-service police officers who attended colleges and universities throughout the United States. As these federal funds became less available, police administrators and educators have been challenged to devise new programs to encourage employees to further develop themselves, such as tuition- reimbursement policies and online degree programs.

Training is an important part of the staffing process; it is concerned with molding selected job applicants into knowledgeable, skilled, committed employees of the organ- ization and remolding current employees. Training is also a basic component of the directing function of management which, as explained in a later section, is concerned with making sure that employees know what to do and how to do it.

Assignment Once trained at the orientation and recruit levels, an employee must be assigned

to a job within the organization. The nature of the job in which the trained recruit is placed ordinarily requires little choice for most police departments, because most new sworn police employees begin their careers as patrol officers. This tradition has changed very little since Sir Robert Peel established the first metropolitan police department in London in 1829. However, in larger police departments, the assignment of rookies may involve some choice as to the locations of their assignment. Some departments assign officers to districts in which they live; others intentionally assign officers away from their places of residence. Some assignments are made on the basis of race and ethnicity. For example, black and Spanish-speaking officers may be assigned to predominantly black and Spanish-speaking neighborhoods, respectively.

Although there are vastly conflicting philosophies regarding assignments, the plac- ing of individuals within any organization is an extremely important staffing function. Individuals who are improperly assigned can negatively affect the organization’s effort to meet its goals and objectives.

Assignment should be regarded as a continuous staffing process. Those responsible for the staffing function should continually assess assignment output through feedback in order to make staffing adjustments or personnel transfers. Very few police officers spend their entire careers in the positions to which they were assigned as rookies. Although many may remain at the patrol officer rank throughout their careers, most will probably be transferred

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from district to district within the community or to specialized duties within the organi- zation. The transfer of personnel should be considered a healthy application of the systems concept to the police management function. It should never be anticipated that everyone placed in every position will always be best suited to perform in that position.

Although long-term beat assignments for patrol officers are often preferred, there is also much to be said for regular, periodic shifting of personnel. It not only develops more well-rounded employees, but by re-challenging them to learn new and more interesting jobs also lessens the likelihood that they will stagnate in one position. Transfers also become necessary in problem situations. Some employees simply may not be able to perform in a particular area of the community or in a particular job. Disputes between co-workers or between subordinates and superiors may be insoluble except through transfers. However, when personality problems impede an organization from meeting its goals and objectives, great care should be taken in using transfer as the solution. In such cases, transfers should be used only as a last resort, especially when feedback indicates that transfers would only move problems from one subsystem of the organization to another. Therefore, transfers should be made only if it appears likely that they will positively affect system output.

Promotion Promotion as a staffing activity is a transfer upward in rank. The methods used by

police departments to determine who will be promoted vary tremendously; there is no consistent police promotion pattern in the United States. Police promotional systems usually include one or more of the following evaluative techniques:

1. written examinations;

2. oral interviews;

3. experience (sometimes called “longevity”);

4. past performance evaluation;

5. assessment centers.

As a rule, various percentage weights are assigned to each evaluative technique. These will vary from department to department, depending on which criteria the department’s administrator regards as most important or which ones are mandated by a civil service system or collective bargaining agreement.

Police departments that use only one or two of these techniques in their promotional systems can anticipate having problems in the administration of the promotional process. It is not recommended, for example, that promotions be based solely on the outcome of a written examination. This, however, is the case in many police departments, and it is why

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so many police departments have problems with their promotional systems. Departments that fail to use multiple techniques, with published weighted values assigned to each cri- terion, impede the successful output of the staffing process, which in turn hinders their efforts to meet goals and objectives. Problems arising from the promotion process that are not being fed back into the staffing process as new inputs provide proof that most police departments do not look at staffing from a systems perspective. The value of the systems approach to any process of police management, including promoting and staffing, is that problems will be identified through feedback and that systems will be improved by using new input.

Of the five evaluative techniques discussed here, perhaps the most promising is the fifth: the assessment center. This method uses simulated real-life situations designed to place the person being evaluated into scenarios in which he or she will have a full oppor- tunity to exhibit job-related skills closely identified with the position to be filled. Although assessment centers can be utilized in the selection process,46 they are most frequently used in the police field to help make promotion decisions.47 As a promotional device, the assessment center is a multidimensional evaluation approach that, typically over a period of two or three days,48 places the candidate for promotion in a variety of anxiety-laden roles and positions in which the candidate’s prioritizing and decision-making capabilities, as well as his or her ability to communicate orally and in writing, are closely tested and minutely examined under the most realistic conditions possible. For example, one evalua- tion, known as the “in-basket exercise,” requires a candidate to assume the role of a police supervisor and to carry out a series of difficult simulated assignments in a limited period of time.49 After submitting a written report on the rationale for actions taken and being orally interviewed on positions adopted, the candidate is evaluated on a whole range of characteristics and tasks pertinent to the job. Other role-playing simulations might include placing a candidate in a police manager’s role at a press conference called to deal with a controversial issue or having the candidate counsel a problem subordinate. There is literally no end to simulations that can be easily designed and validated to test skills in this manner.

Termination The final staffing activity, terminating, may occur on the employee’s own initia-

tive through normal retirement, early retirement, or resignation. It may also occur at the department’s direction through forced retirements, forced resignations, or firings. Terminations may also be based on sickness, injury, or death. Table 6.1 shows the various kinds of special and routine decisions made in the termination process by both the police department and the employee. When the department makes termination decisions, regardless of whether they are special or routine decisions, the department is engaging in the terminating process.

An employee’s voluntary retirement is usually the cause of much rejoicing and is

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regarded as the happy ending to many years of productive employment. By reaching retirement age or by choosing to retire early, the employee leaves the police department with the realization that he or she performed adequately for a considerable period of time.

When a police department fires employees or forces them to resign or retire, it is telling them, in effect, that they are no longer useful to the organization in its attempts to meet its goals and objectives. Such an action will necessarily affect the entire system and potentially cause strong subsystem reactions. These reactions may be either positive or negative. When an employee is fired or forced to resign or retire as the result of an internal investigation that uncovered corruption or incompetence, the effect on the system should be positive. When an employee is forced out of a department based on inconclusive evidence, it should be anticipated that the effect on the system will be negative. In the former instance, the action taken by the department serves notice to all other employees that corruption or incompetence will not be tolerated by the department. In the latter instance, action against the employee suggests that the same rules of evidence that are applied generally throughout the criminal justice system are not applicable to them, thus creating a morale problem that the department could very well do without in its efforts to meet its goals and objectives.

The voluntary resignation of an employee short of retirement age is usually regarded as a setback for the department. When a police officer resigns, the department loses not only its investment in the individual but also an experienced employee. Although many employees terminate voluntarily for personal reasons beyond the control of the police department, such as sickness, injury, or a better-paying position, others terminate vol- untarily because of dissatisfaction with their jobs or because of departmental problems with which they cannot cope. Still others quit because they are uninterested in their jobs, cannot get along with people, or find it difficult to make a long-term commitment to one employer. Voluntary terminations should be expected. Large numbers of voluntary terminations, however, should be a signal to people involved in the staffing function that something is seriously wrong with the department. To assess this condition, many police

TABLE 6.1 Special and Routine Decisions Made in the Termination Process

Source of Decisions Special Decisions Routine Decisions

Department Forced retirements

Forced resignations

Firings

Retirements due to sickness or injury

Terminations due to death

Employee Voluntary resignations Normal retirement

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departments annually calculate their turnover rate, the percentage of employees who leave the agency during the preceding year.

The voluntary resignation or involuntary termination of an employee, besides being a waste for both the department and the individual concerned, may in all likelihood also be substantial proof of a breakdown somewhere in the staffing function, most probably in selection, training, or placement. Those responsible for staffing should therefore be required to carefully examine all aspects and all ramifications of involuntary termination in an effort to improve staffing input with respect to the termination process. Application of the systems approach is one way to get at and solve organizational problems that stem from management deficiencies. Exit interviews with terminated employees are useful in getting feedback on staffing problems. If an organization’s selection, training, and assignment processes can be refined so that most problems are eliminated through the adjustment and change of systems inputs, a department can improve its turnover rate and avoid many involuntary terminations.

Directing

Think for a moment of motion picture directors and what they do. Their job is directing; they tell the actors and actresses to speak their lines, what movements to make before the cameras, and what emotions to display. They show their camera crews what angles, lenses, and filters to use. They establish filming schedules. They direct the activities of people involved in casting, costumes, and makeup. Their job involves telling people what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. They call the shots. They do this by bringing together all of the talents they have at their disposal and orchestrating them as best they can into what will become the final production, a motion picture.

This job may seem to be a simple process. It is not. Consider some of its complica- tions. Actors and actresses are professionals in their own right and some of them may be more highly paid than the directors. They may refuse to comply with shooting schedules or refuse to take direction. Other members of the crew may have technical disagreements with the directors, or they may simply misunderstand their directions. In other instances, personality conflicts between the directors and their employees may impede progress. Problems involving sickness, injury, substance abuse, family, and just plain irresponsibil- ity will contribute to delaying production and are likely to be costly.

In the directing function, managers develop and disseminate directives and provide leadership, guidance, coaching, coordination, and encouragement. Subordinates receive and act on those directives. Subordinates bring with them differing skills, abilities, knowl- edge, attitudes, perceptions, and levels of motivation. Objectives guide the thoughtful- ness of the process. If directing fails to point an organization toward the accomplishment of its goals and objectives, it serves no useful purpose.

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The output of the directing process, in general terms, is direction. In more specific terms, the outputs are policies, procedures, rules, regulations, general orders, special orders, personal orders, training curricula, training bulletins, advice, suggestions, encour- agement, and persuasion.

Feedback to the directing function comes from evaluation of the extent to which directives (orders, rules, regulations, policies, and procedures) are understood and fol- lowed. Because dissemination and reception of directives involve the intricate processes of communication and perception, it is essential that the output of the directing process, direction, be carefully evaluated on a continuous basis so that any directives that are improperly communicated or misunderstood can be further explained or redesigned as new input and re-disseminated through the directing process.

Some types of directives lend themselves to immediate feedback. For example, in issu- ing a personal order to a patrol officer to leave the police station immediately to answer a burglary-in-progress call, a sergeant will learn within a matter of seconds whether the patrol officer understands the order. Similarly, in discussing a newly disseminated general order with patrol officers at roll call, a sergeant can learn from their responses whether they understand the content of the order. However, most feedback to the directing pro- cess is not such a simple matter. Several months might go by before officers encounter a situation in which a new directive should be applied. If they have forgotten the directive, they will improvise as best they can under the circumstances, but may not necessarily perform according to the method prescribed by the department through the directive. If they misunderstood the intent of the directive when it was issued, chances are good that they will perform in a manner not consistent with departmental procedure. Supervisors must be alert to such possibilities and advise their superiors when directives, for what- ever reason, are not being followed. Therefore, supervisors are key people in providing feedback to keep the loop closed in the directing process. If supervisors fail to provide information for evaluation and new input, the department will likely be unaware that its directives are not being followed and will be lulled into a false sense of security about the activities of its officers.

There is no quicker way for a police department to degenerate organizationally than to allow the directing process to function in an open-loop fashion. Departments that fail to approach the directing process from a closed-loop systems perspective actually encourage their police officers to defy directives and to handle all situations through a process that the President’s Crime Commission referred to as “unarticulated improvisation.”50 This means, in effect, that police officers will handle situations according to their own individual judgments and whims and not according to the articulated policies of their own depart- ments. This results in laws being enforced indiscriminately and services being provided haphazardly. The resulting inconsistencies in levels of enforcement and services negatively affect the police generally and the individual department specifically. Although this may be a “comfortable approach,” as the Commission put it, for the officers involved, it is

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organizationally chaotic and flies in the face of the systems approach to good management. As an alternative, the Commission recommended a different process, which is “system- atic, intelligent, articulate and responsive to external controls appropriate in a democratic society.”51 The only way to achieve this is to keep the loop closed in the directing process.

Although feedback from supervisors is probably the single most important factor in keeping the loop closed in the directing process, other methods should also be used. One such method is the test. When a directive is issued, all employees governed by the directive should be tested on their understanding of its specifics. The test can be written or oral; the written test, however, is more advantageous because it affords a better oppor- tunity to thoroughly examine the individual’s reception and perception of the directive. Moreover, an individual forced to describe the directive in written form is more likely to remember it than if the description is given orally. In addition, the answers on a written test can be reviewed by a number of people, thereby reducing the possibility of perception errors on the part of reviewers. If the test indicates that the directive is generally misun- derstood, it can be used as an evaluative criterion that can be fed back into the directing process as new input, which would probably result in having the directive rewritten and re-disseminated. If the directive is misunderstood only slightly or by only a few officers, it might be more prudent to design a roll-call training session or even a series of such train- ing sessions to explain the directive. Testing should be an ongoing feedback mechanism and should be discontinued only when management is confident that a given directive is fully understood.

Informal conversations with police officers themselves can also be helpful. One former chief of police in a large West Coast city devoted one-half day per week to informal interviews with individual officers. This proved to be an effective feedback device and gave the chief an opportunity he would not otherwise have had to learn in what ways his own direction output was ineffective. Other chiefs and lower-level police managers simply engage in “walking-around management” by regularly spending some time observing their employees in the performance of their duties and by talking frequently with the police department’s customers.52

By closing the loop of the directing process through feedback and by introducing corrective input into the system, police administrators can exercise their prerogatives and meet their responsibilities as the directors of their organizations. The process of directing involves the following activities:

1. development;

2. dissemination;

3. reception;

4. action.

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Development The development of directives involves considerable planning and a careful analysis

of organizational goals and objectives. Because directives tell people what to do, they must be designed in accordance with what the organization itself wants to accomplish through the people it employs. People are the instrumentality by which the organization functions. It is only through the direction of people that the organization accomplishes what it sets out to do. Deciding what directives should be developed, therefore, is an important part of the directing process.

How should directives be developed? Although this is clearly a management respon- sibility, input from two groups is extremely valuable, as noted in Chapter 5. First, it is a good idea to involve employees in the development of directives, because they are probably more knowledgeable about the practical realities of the work setting than most managers. Involving employees at this stage also makes it more likely that they will under- stand and comply with the directives that are ultimately developed. Second, it is desirable to engage the community in the development of some types of directives—those that most directly affect the public, such as personnel selection guidelines, complaint review procedures, and use-of-force policies. A central tenet of community policing is that, in a free society, citizens should have such opportunities to shape the style and manner of policing in their communities. An additional benefit of such citizen participation is usu- ally an increase in trust and confidence in the police.

It is also important to consider, in the development stage of directing, what skills, abilities, and knowledge employees need and how best to fill those needs. Formal training may be required or one-on-one coaching may be more appropriate. Sometimes employees have the necessary tools but lack the will, commitment, or motivation to perform prop- erly. In these instances, the directing function should focus on providing encouragement, incentives, and leadership. Chapters 8 through 10 are devoted to the human aspects of management that come into play when carrying out the directing function.

Dissemination Directives are disseminated, or communicated, from superiors to subordinates;

they are also disseminated as part of recruit and in-service training. The process of com- municating directives to those who are expected to follow them and act on them is an involved and complex procedure. Literally millions of people in the world earn their living by either communicating with people or telling people how to communicate with one another. Communication is an art practiced by many but mastered by few. It is the primary vehicle for the dissemination of directives.

Interpersonal communication is discussed in Chapter 8. The flow of communica- tions within the police organization is further examined in Chapter 11.

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Reception The reception of directives involves individual perception, a matter as difficult to

analyze as it is to predict. Nations have gone to war, businesses have gone bankrupt, and people have committed suicide because of faulty perception. Huge bureaucracies such as the Central Intelligence Agency exist almost solely to provide their respective governments with accurate perceptions of foreign powers. Political candidates and large corporations expend tremendous energy and sometimes substantial sums of money in efforts to perceive accurately what the public is thinking and what people want. Pollsters such as Gallup and Harris are widely read and generally relied on to provide perceptions of various trends that are occurring and always changing in society.

Yet even the most astute professionals frequently perceive incorrectly. The Ford Motor Company was guilty of inaccurate perception when it conceived the Edsel. Neville Chamberlain was guilty of inaccurate perception when he chose to trust Adolf Hitler. Every financial expert in the United States, except for Roger Babson, was guilty of inaccurate perception in failing to predict the stock market crash of 1929. How often have you personally made an innocent remark to someone that was taken the wrong way, resulting in misperception?

Action What matters the most are the actions that employees take and whether they are

consonant with organizational directives. This depends on a number of factors, includ- ing the effectiveness of dissemination and reception, group dynamics, leadership, values, attitudes, and motivation. Taken as a whole, the process of directing is tied up with the psychology of human behavior, which itself is an academic discipline. The better one understands the pragmatics of human behavior, human relationships, and human interaction, the better a director one becomes. If one cannot understand and deal with the behavior of human beings pragmatically and without illusions, one should not be involved in the directing process.

Controlling

The management function of controlling is closely related to directing. Whereas directing is involved in communicating what should be done, controlling is involved with ensuring that what should be done is done. If directing is the making and communicating of rules, controlling is enforcing the rules.

Controlling as a management function is somewhat broader, however, than simple rule enforcement, and includes functions that might not generally be looked on as control

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devices. Budgeting, for example, is one way in which an organization uses the allocation of money to control its subsystems. Another control mechanism is the gathering and evaluation of statistics, a means by which an organization learns about the effectiveness of its operation and thereby controls its activities. Controlling is designed essentially to make certain that an organization and its component parts adhere to established plans and directives.

A significant gap between the way functions are performed and the way they are supposed to be performed is an indication that the controlling function is not serving its purpose. It may also indicate a failure of the directing function; in such instances, employ- ees simply do not understand directives. It may further indicate that prevailing directives are not consistent with organizational goals and objectives, presenting employees with a choice between doing what they have been told to do and what they honestly judge is best for the organization. Each of these possibilities must be kept in mind by police managers who administer their organizations from a systems perspective and who are responsible for directing and controlling.

Controlling involves influencing behavior. Numerous methods are used to influence behavior: rewards, punishments, threats, promises, and persuasion (see “The Control Principle,” Box 6.2). The influencing of human behavior is a difficult, complex, and involved process. Most parents are thoroughly familiar with problems inherent in the process. Although they have almost total authority over their children, especially in the younger years, they often find it impossible to control their behavior and to have them act according to parental expectations. Parents’ failures in controlling their children are disruptive to the family and harmful to the children themselves. Testing their parents to see how much they can get away with is common among children; it is, in fact, a contin- uous process. Consider how much more difficult it is to control an entire organization. In an organization composed of tens or hundreds of people, the controlling function is quite involved and requires a concerted effort. If one is to achieve any degree of success in controlling people within large organizations, it is absolutely essential that a variety

BOX 6.2 The Control Principle

Police activities range from low-criticality to high-criticality and low-frequency to high-frequency.

Police officials must identify which activities require strict control-oriented policies and which

require only summary guidance. In other words, the style of policy will vary according to a con-

tinuum of control. In addition, there must be training to the policy, control and supervision of the

activities and a system of discipline that holds the officers and agency accountable for the behavior.

Source: Geoffrey P. Alpert and William C. Smith. 1996. “Developing Police Policy: An Evaluation

of the Control Principle.” In Gary W. Cordner and Dennis Jay Kenney (eds), Managing Police

Organizations. Cincinnati, OH: Anderson, p. 124.

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or continuum of techniques be employed53 and that a closed-loop systems approach be used in the process.

Behavior modification techniques must be used intelligently to motivate people to perform effectively. These techniques are used to motivate people to do what you expect them to do, what they are directed to do. Once a directive is issued, there is no guarantee that an individual will automatically be inclined to follow it, even if he or she understands it. In most organizations, the tendency is just the opposite—the tendency is called “beating the system.” People must somehow be motivated to follow directives if the organization for which they work is to meet its goals and objectives. Because it is essential for people in organizations to follow directives, the methods used to modify their behavior so that they will be willing to perform their jobs as expected must be carefully designed and implemented.

Of the many behavior-modification methods used, the two most important for police administrators to consider are reward and recognition, both of which are easy to develop and implement. Reward and recognition might take the form of pay increments for work well done, promotions, public recognition, days off, favorable assignments, and special awards. Even a pat on the back for a job well done should not be underestimated as a motivational factor.

Recognition is perhaps the most compelling behavior modifier of all. People who do good work should be recognized for their contributions. Recognition gives an individual a sense of organizational belonging. It is non-monetary pay for a job well done. It says to the officer, “We recognize your worth, and we place great value on your being an important part of the organization.” It provides a tremendous incentive for the officer to want to continue to perform effectively. The officer feels a part of the organization team and is further motivated to follow directives in an effort to help the organization meet its goals and objectives.

Police departments that fail to realize the importance of reward and recognition as behavior modifiers cannot possibly meet their goals and objectives and will be constantly plagued by large numbers of officers attempting to beat the system. The system has to be geared to recognize the need that all people have to feel important. It must consciously devise as many methods as possible to make people feel appreciated. If not, employees will think that the system does not recognize their talents and contributions and that, regardless of how well they do their work, nobody really cares. This contributes to an “organization be damned” philosophy, a feeling of uselessness, and a commitment to do as little work as possible just to get by.

Decisions made by individual officers with respect to actions taken often depend largely, and sometimes solely, on the sense of belonging that officers have toward their department. If they are comfortable in their positions and believe that their department recognizes what they do, chances are excellent that they will do their jobs to the best of their abilities and be organizationally productive in terms of goals and objectives.

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Because police officers often work alone with little direct supervision, their activities are extremely difficult to control. An assembly-line worker with a hovering supervisor is much easier to control than a police officer who might see a supervisor only once or twice during an entire tour of duty. It is therefore important to realize that controlling a police officer involves the application of highly refined motivational devices. The mechanisms of reward and recognition as behavior modifiers, when properly applied, can make the difference between meeting or not meeting organizational goals and objectives.

It would be unfair to leave you with the impression that other behavior modification devices should be totally discarded in favor of reward and recognition. Punishment, for example, can be effective as a behavior modifier if used fairly, consistently, and not to the exclusion of other behavior modifiers. However, punishment should be used only as a last resort. Realistically, it must be understood that some people are difficult to motivate except through punishment. The effort to motivate people through other means should always be made and punishment used only if everything else fails. Depending on the seriousness of the infraction, everyone should probably be given a second chance, and perhaps even a third, before the administrator resorts to punishment. When an infrac- tion occurs, a subtle threat or even a direct promise to take action should the infraction recur might very well serve to motivate the individual sufficiently. The best method for effecting control within any organization is through the sensible application of as many motivational techniques as possible, including a fair and systematic discipline system.54 Discipline is very important, but overreliance on punishment can lead to unnecessary conflict that can interfere with the organization’s effectiveness and make the chief ’s job even more difficult (see “Police Discipline Issues,” Box 6.3).

The output of the controlling process is control. If every employee always acted in exact accordance with organizational directives, absolute control would exist. In order for this to happen, perfect communication would have to exist within the organization; every directive would have to be completely understood by every employee; and every employee would have to agree that every directive issued was consonant with organiza- tional as well as personal goals and objectives. Considering that some people are more motivated, more conscientious, and more talented than others, one should conclude that in an organization of any size, absolute control cannot exist.

The evaluation of the effectiveness of established control mechanisms provides feed- back for the controlling function. The feedback of supervisors who observe their officers at work and who review their reports is critical to the controlling process. Informal feed- back from officers themselves and from the public can also be helpful.

Large departments have specialized inspection divisions that make periodic checks throughout their organizations in an effort to determine the degree to which directives are being followed.55 Inspections exist primarily to provide feedback in the controlling process. Their very existence, however, is a control mechanism in and of itself that ensures a certain degree of compliance with departmental directives. Even in the smallest police

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departments the inspection function can be performed by the chief or a trusted associate, as discussed in Chapter 4. It is an excellent feedback device.

The departmental audit is another mechanism that is frequently used to provide feed- back on control output. Audits can be performed to determine conformity to almost any type of organizational directive. Some departments rely on independent outside consult- ants to study various aspects of the degree to which control over all activities is exercised. Such organizations as the IACP and PERF have been widely used for this purpose. The

BOX 6.3 Police Discipline Issues

Effective policing depends on a disciplinary process that is capable of serving the interests of all

three parties [community, officers, and department] in a fair and equitable manner. In many cases

the current disciplinary systems fail to do this, reducing police legitimacy and effectiveness. Some

current issues with police disciplinary processes include:

• The disciplinary process is an ongoing source of conflict with employees and unions.

• The disciplinary process is a source of mistrust and tension for some in the community, par-

ticularly in minority communities where many believe too many police decisions are influenced

by race.

• The focus of discipline is predominately punishment, not behavior change.

• For the most part, the disciplinary process fails to deal adequately with the small group of

officers who are the source of a disproportionate share of complaints received and use-of-force

situations.

• Inconsistent messages are sent to officers by the department heads handling complaints and

misconduct allegations.

• The disciplinary appeal processes often weaken the purpose of discipline.

• Processes generally take an excessive amount of time to complete.

• Processes and outcomes often do not appear to be fair to employees.

• Processes and outcomes may be influenced by the amount of publicity the alleged misconduct

receives.

• Discipline in some states is very public (e.g. Florida and Texas) but in most, it is a personnel

matter protected by privacy laws (e.g. North Carolina).

• The police chief’s authority to administer discipline varies widely even though it is a critically

important responsibility in the overall operation of the department.

• The administration of discipline in police departments has taken on the characteristics of a crim-

inal process in the way the investigation is conducted, testimony and evidence are considered

and, in many respects, the way sanctions are imposed.

Source: Darrel W. Stephens. 2011. “Police Discipline: A Case for Change.” New Perspectives in

Policing. Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice, pp. 5–10.

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CALEA accreditation program also provides a form of external audit, since assessors visit the agency every three years to verify compliance with standards.

The establishment of an internal affairs division is another useful feedback device. These divisions internally investigate such matters as police impropriety, excessive force, corruption, and malfeasance. Aside from being a response to citizen interest in having the police “police themselves,” internal affairs divisions provide a strong incentive for police officers to comply with organizational directives, particularly to directives relating to behavior that borders on being improper or criminal. The results of internal affairs investigations should always be fed back into the controlling function as new input.

As with all management functions, the importance of feedback cannot be stressed too strongly. No chief of police, especially one several levels removed from operational components, can assume that directives are being followed; if the job of management is not approached from a systems perspective, the chief can be almost certain that directives are not being followed as consistently as intended.

The controlling function of management, much like the directing function, is con- cerned largely with the psychology of human behavior, a subject that will be treated more fully in subsequent chapters.

Summary

This chapter has presented the six primary functions of management: system build- ing, planning, organizing, staffing, directing, and controlling. The first three are the particular responsibility of top-level police managers, while the second three are among the standard responsibilities of virtually all managers in police agencies, from first-line supervisors through the chief executive. Each function is extremely intricate and could be the subject of a separate volume. We have discussed these functions within the framework of systems theory. We urge you to retain the systems concept as a frame of mind and as an important point of reference. By regularly searching for the inputs, processes, outputs, and feedback in management activities, you will become more adept at analyzing and building systems. Or, to put it another way, you will become more adept at managing.

D I S C U S S I O N Q U E S T I O N S

1. What specific steps can police agencies take to enhance system learning? What happens to the store of knowledge and experience in a police department when key members retire after long careers? How could their knowledge and experience be “saved” by the agency?

2. Some people argue that planning is a wasteful activity, because they believe that the future is either preordained or too unpredictable to prepare for. Do you agree with these people? Does planning serve any useful purpose?

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3. African Americans, women, and other groups have traditionally been underrepresented in police organizations. Why do you think this has been the case? How would you correct this situation?

4. Police departments have traditionally required their employees to retire once they reach a certain age, for example, 55 years old. Do you think this is fair to employees? What should police agencies do with older officers who do not want to retire? As a citizen, how would you feel if you were in trouble and the police officer who responded to your call for assistance was 65 or 70 years old?

5. Some authorities have proposed that police officers should be chosen only from among people possessing college degrees. Do you agree with this position? If you do, how would you answer the criticism that many otherwise well-qualified people have been excluded from consideration? What about the argument that college is not as available to poor people and thus they would be unfairly discriminated against by a college degree requirement? On the other side of the coin, if you do not favor the requirement, what consideration would you give to those people who do have the degree? Would you offer promotional advantages, extra money, or special positions?

Cases

Two of the case studies in the back of the text might be analyzed using material from Chapter 6. You should compare the chapter’s discussion of planning to Case 3, Strategic Planning in Spokane, Washington. You should also examine Case 5, Leading Change in Riverside, California from the standpoint of management functions by level of organization—as you will see, the chief tried to change the duties and responsibilities of sergeants, lieutenants, and captains in the police department.

Suggested Reading

Geller, W.A. and D. Stephens. 2003. Local Government Police Management. Washington, DC: International City Management Association.

Heidensohn, F. and J.M. Brown. 2000. Gender and Policing: Comparative Perspectives. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Schafer, J.A., M.E. Buerger, R.W. Myers, C.J. Jensen, and B.H. Levin. 2012. The Future of Policing: A Practical Guide for Police Managers and Leaders. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.

Scrivner, E. 2006. Innovations in Police Recruitment and Hiring: Hiring in the Spirit of Service. Washington, DC: Office of Community Oriented Policing Services.

Wilson, J.M., B.D. Rostker, and C.-C. Fan. 2010. Recruiting and Retaining America’s Finest: Evidence-Based Lessons for Police Workforce Planning. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation.

Notes

1 L. Gulick. 1937. “The Theory of Organization.” In L. Gulick and L. Urwick (eds), Papers on the Science of Administration. New York, NY: Institute of Public Administration, p. 13.

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2 R.L. Holcomb (ed.).1961. Municipal Police Administration. Chicago, IL: International City Management Association, p. 77.

3 L.R. Sayles. 1964. Managerial Behavior: Administration in Complex Organizations. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, pp. 49–54.

4 G.D. Eastman. 1969. “Police Management.” In G.D. Eastman and E.M. Eastman (eds), Municipal Police Administration, sixth edition. Washington, DC: International City Management Association, p. 37.

5 H. Koontz and C. O’Donnell. 1964. Principles of Management: An Analysis of Managerial Functions. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

6 W.W. Schmidt. 1985. “Section 1983 and the Changing Face of Police Management.” In W.A. Geller (ed.), Police Leadership in America: Crisis and Opportunity. New York, NY: Praeger, pp. 226–236.

7 V.E. Kappeler. 2006. Critical Issues in Police Civil Liability, fourth edition. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland.

8 R.L. Katz. 1974. “Skills of an Effective Administrator.” Harvard Business Review (September–October): 26.

9 S. Guilfoyle. 2013. Intelligent Policing: How Systems Thinking Methods Eclipse Conventional Management Practice. Devon, UK: Triarchy Press.

10 The Baltimore County Repeat Offender Planning Project. 1983. Baltimore, MD: University of Baltimore.

11 T.J. Peters and R.H. Waterman Jr. 1982. In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America’s Best-Run Companies. New York, NY: Harper & Row.

12 L.F. Alarid. 1999. “Law Enforcement Departments as Learning Organizations: Argyris’s Theory as a Framework for Implementing Community-Oriented Policing.” Police Quarterly 2, no. 3 (September): 321–337; W.A. Geller. 1997. “Suppose We Were Really Serious about Police Departments Becoming ‘Learning Organizations’.” NIJ Journal 234 (December): 2–8; P.M. Senge. 1994. The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization, revised edition. New York, NY: Doubleday.

13 D.C. Couper. 2011. Arrested Development: A Veteran Police Chief Sounds Off about Protest, Racism, Corruption and the Seven Steps Necessary to Improve Our Nation’s Police. Indianapolis, IN: Dog Ear Publishing, p. 177.

14 D. Ogle. 1991. “A Model for Strategic Planning.” In D. Ogle (ed.), Strategic Planning for Police. Ottawa: Canadian Police College, pp. 14–15.

15 R. Stata. 1989. “Organizational Learning.” Sloan Management Review 30, no. 3 (Spring): 63–74. 16 G.L. Williams. 1989. Making the Grade: The Benefits of Law Enforcement Accreditation. Washington, DC:

Police Executive Research Forum. The Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies can be found online at www.calea.org.

17 Standards for Law Enforcement Agencies, fifth edition, as amended. 2015. Gainesville, VA: Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, Inc.

18 The Society of Police Futurists International can be found online at www.policefuturists.org. 19 J.K. Hudzik and G.W. Cordner. 1983. Planning in Criminal Justice Organizations and Systems. New

York, NY: Macmillan. 20 The International Association of Law Enforcement Planners can be found online at www.ialep.org/. 21 J.R. Greene, W.T. Bergman, and E.J. McLaughlin. 1994. “Implementing Community Policing:

Cultural and Structural Change in Police Organizations.” In D.P. Rosenbaum (ed.), The Challenge of Community Policing: Testing the Promises. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 92–109.

22 T.D. Cook. 1997. “Lessons Learned in Evaluation Over the Past 25 Years.” In E. Chelimsky and W.R. Shadish (eds), Evaluation for the 21st Century: A Handbook. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 30–52.

23 G.W. Cordner, C.B. Fraser, and C. Wexler. 1991. “Research, Planning, and Implementation.” In

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W.A. Geller (ed.), Local Government Police Management, third edition. Washington, DC: International City Management Association, pp. 333–362.

24 T.D. Schneid and L.K. Gaines. 1996. “The Americans with Disabilities Act: Implications for Police Administrators.” In D.J. Kenney and G.W. Cordner (eds), Managing Police Personnel. Cincinnati, OH: Anderson, pp. 43–52.

25 R.R. Roberg and J.J. Krichoff. 1985. “Applying Strategic Management Methods to Law Enforcement: Two Case Studies.” American Journal of Police 4, no. 2 (Fall): 133–151; J. Zurcher and J.B. Hudak. 1987. “How to Build a Crystal Ball: Strategic Planning for Police Agencies.” Police Chief (February): 20–29.

26 J.R. Greene. 1998. “The Road to Community Policing in Los Angeles.” In G.P. Alpert and A. Piquero (eds), Community Policing: Contemporary Readings. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland, pp. 123–158.

27 J.D. Mooney and A.C. Reilly. 1931. Onward Industry! The Principles of Organization and Their Significance to Modern Industry. New York, NY: Harper Brothers, pp. 9–11, 12–17, as quoted in E. Dale (ed.). 1965. Readings in Management: Landmarks and New Frontiers. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, p. 155.

28 H.J. Leavitt. 1972. Managerial Psychology: An Introduction to Individuals, Pairs, and Groups in Organizations. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, p. 250.

29 T.N. Oettmeier and M.A. Wycoff. 1997. Personnel Performance Evaluations in the Community Policing Context. Washington, DC: Police Executive Research Forum.

30 M. Lysakowski. 2008. “The Recruitment Challenge.” Community Policing Dispatch 1, no. 7 (July). Online at: www.cops.usdoj.gov/html/dispatch/july_2008/recruitment.htm.

31 S.W. Gellerman. 1963. Motivation and Productivity. New York, NY: American Management Association, p. 238.

32 Gellerman. 1963. Motivation and Productivity, p. 240. 33 T.D. Schneid and L.K. Gaines. 1991. “The Americans with Disabilities Act: Implications for Police

Administrators.” American Journal of Police 10, no. 1: 47–58. 34 D.L. Carter, A.D. Sapp, and D.W. Stephens. 1989. The State of Police Education: Policy Direction for the

21st Century. Washington, DC: Police Executive Research Forum. 35 B.A. Reaves. 2010. Local Police Departments, 2007. Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics. 36 E. Burbeck and A. Furnham.1985. “Police Officer Selection: A Critical Review of the Literature.”

Journal of Police Science and Administration 13, no. 1 (March), p. 58. 37 R. Roberg, K. Novak, G. Cordner, and B. Smith. 2015. Police & Society, sixth edition. New York, NY:

Oxford University Press, pp. 195–206. 38 H. Saxenian. 1970. “To Select a Leader.” MIT Technology Review 72, no. 7 (May): 55–61. 39 G.W. Cordner. 1980. “Job Analysis and the Police: Benefits and Limitations.” Journal of Police Science

and Administration 8, no. 3 (September): 355–362. 40 T. Ho. 2001. “The Interrelationships of Psychological Testing, Psychologists’ Recommendations, and

Police Departments’ Recruitment Decisions.” Police Quarterly 4, no. 3 (September): 318–342; V.B. Lord and N. Schoeps. 2000. “Identifying Psychological Attributes of Community-Oriented, Problem- Solving Police Officers.” Police Quarterly 3, no. 2 (June): 172–190.

41 J.D.K. Aaron. 2000. “Stress and Coping in Police Officers.” Police Quarterly 3, no. 4 (December): 438–450.

42 E. Metchik. 1999. “An Analysis of the ‘Screening Out’ Model of Police Officer Selection.” Police Quarterly 2, no. 1 (March): 79–95.

43 L.K. Gaines and V.E. Kappeler. 1992. “Selection and Testing.” In G.W. Cordner and D.C. Hale (eds), What Works in Policing? Operations and Administration Examined. Cincinnati, OH: Anderson, pp. 107–123.

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44 Experiments in Police Improvement: A Progress Report. 1972. Washington, DC: Police Foundation, p. 13.

45 R.O. Loen. 1971. Manage More by Doing Less. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, pp. 126–131. 46 D.A. Kent, C.R. Wall, and R.L. Bailey. 1974. “Assessment Centers: A New Approach to Police Personnel

Decisions.” Police Chief (June): 72. 47 P.F. D’Arcy. 1974. “In New York City Assessment Center Program Helps to Test Managerial

Competence.” Police Chief (December): 52. 48 C.L. Quarles. 1985. “A Validation Study of a Police Managerial Assessment Center.” American Journal

of Police 4, no. 1: 80. 49 C.D. Buracker. 1980. “The Assessment Center: Is it the Answer?” FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin

(February): 15. 50 President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice. 1967. Task Force Report:

The Police. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, p. 18. 51 President’s Commission. 1967. Task Force Report, p. 18. 52 Peters and Waterman. 1982. In Search of Excellence. 53 G.P. Alpert and W.C. Smith. 1996. “Developing Police Policy: An Evaluation of the Control Principle.”

In G.W. Cordner and D.J. Kenney (eds), Managing Police Organizations. Cincinnati, OH: Anderson, pp. 111–126.

54 D.W. Stephens. 2011. “Police Discipline: A Case for Change.” New Perspectives in Policing. Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice.

55 P.V. Murphy and G. Caplan. 1991. “Fostering Integrity.” In W.A. Geller (ed.), Local Government Police Management, third edition. Washington, DC: International City Management Association, pp. 239–271.

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CHAPTER 7 The Police Executive

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

• Identify and contrast the two basic roles of the police executive. • Explain the difference between managing and leading. • Identify eight principles for organizational excellence. • Identify 10 principles for reinventing government. • Explain the difference between “Politics” and “politics,” and the proper influence of each on police

administration. • Explain the historical benefit that civil service reform brought to police administration, and

describe some modern problems caused by civil service agencies. • Identify three models for police–media relations, the pros and cons of each, and the basic princi-

ple that should guide police relations with the media. • Explain why police labor relations often put the police executive in a difficult “in-the-middle”

position. • Identify four police executive styles.

In this chapter, we review the duties and responsibilities of the police executive. We frequently use the term police chief in this chapter and throughout the text; most of the information presented, however, will be just as applicable to other police executives, including police commissioners, superintendents, directors, chief constables, sheriffs, and all other heads of police agencies, regardless of title.

In earlier chapters, we examined in considerable detail such topics as police goals, systems, and subsystem tasks as well as organizational principles and management func- tions. In this chapter, we discuss the fundamental roles played by police executives and some common styles or patterns of police executive behavior. We also present some con- temporary views on organizational improvement, including approaches that emphasize excellence and the “reinvention” of government.

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Characteristics of Police Executives

Anecdotal evidence indicates that white middle-aged males tend to fill the role of police chief in a majority of police organizations, with growing representation of women and people of color. Some research indicates that the numbers of women in police com- mand positions is actually stagnant or in some cases decreasing, however, which would tend to decrease the pool of women candidates for top-level executive positions in the future.1

Some research has examined the tenure and turnover of police executives. While only a small exploratory study, Rainguet and Dodge interviewed 10 former and incumbent chiefs to identify reasons these executives gave for leaving their organizations.2 These chiefs worked for municipal police agencies with an average of 5.1 years’ service as chief. Small, medium, and large organizations were all represented in this small sample. Each chief had some college education, ranging from an associate’s degree to a doctorate. The data revealed that health concerns, stress, politics, and personnel issues affected the rel- atively short tenure of those interviewed. While the results of this work must be viewed with caution due to its small sample size and limited generalizability, the issues of concern cited by the respondents should be recognized as potentially affecting one’s career, espe- cially as he or she moves up the ranks.

The Two Basic Roles of the Police Executive

The police executive has two basic roles. The first involves internal matters in the police organization and focuses on the organization itself, including such concerns as employees, tasks, rules, supervision, jobs, workload, efficiency, and budget. In this role, the police executive is concerned with making sure that the organization functions cor- rectly. The executive is at the helm of the system and must ensure that inputs, processes, outputs, and feedback are properly dealt with so that the system achieves its goals.

The second basic role of the police executive is an external one. You will recall that police organizations are open systems. As such, they interact with their environments. The environments of police organizations present numerous and variable demands, including both routine and unusual requests for police services, such as inquiries concerning police handling of specific incidents, directives from the judiciary, and state-mandated training requirements. The police executive personally receives many of these demands and requests from the environment and is responsible for the organ- ization’s response. More generally, the police executive is responsible for managing the interaction between the organization and the environment so that the system’s goal attainment is not impeded.

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These internal and external roles are equally important and “walking the tightrope” between the two is one of a police executive’s biggest challenges.3 It is obviously crucial that the police chief pay close attention to the inner workings of the police department. This internally directed role clearly fits everyone’s concept of a manager’s duties and responsibilities. The importance of the external role, however, is somewhat less obvious. As we have pointed out, a police department is an open system and is affected by its envi- ronment. Job applicants, the criminal law, money to pay police employees, and requests for police assistance all come to the police department from the environment. The parent government system, the criminal justice system, the community, and the media are all major aspects of the police organization’s environment. For the organization to be suc- cessful, police executives must give as much attention to relations with these and other elements of the environment, as they can significantly affect the police organization.

Failure to perform either role adequately can ruin a police chief and his or her police department. Problems of internal management may result in low productivity, poor morale, substandard personnel and equipment, negligent work, and such abuses as brutal- ity and corruption. As a result of poor internal management, the system can easily fail to attain its goals. In the police context, this means substandard protection of life and prop- erty and inadequate maintenance of order, resulting in numerous adverse consequences.

Failure to properly manage the police organization’s interaction with the external environment will also result in limited goal attainment. If a police executive alienates city hall, for example, it is possible that police budget requests will be jeopardized and funding will be less than adequate for peak police performance (see “Internal and External Roles,” Box 7.1). The police executive who interacts poorly with the media is unlikely to develop an image for the department that enhances citizen respect and support. If relations with prosecutors and the courts are not cultivated, police efforts to curtail crime might be undermined.

In the next two sections of this chapter, we will examine these two police executive roles, one internally focused and one externally focused.

BOX 7.1 Internal and External Roles

A police chief must be a team player. From the chief’s perspective, there are two teams: city hall

and the police department. Many people in a police department like to see the department as

separate from city hall, but it’s not. The chief has got to be the bridge between these two teams

because he’s the only one who plays on both. The chief cannot afford to be seen by the council as

just another cop, nor can he afford to be seen by his department as a lackey of city government.

Source: Chief Tom Nichols, Lubbock (Texas) Police Department, as quoted in Michael S. Scott,

Managing for Success: A Police Chief’s Survival Guide. Washington, DC: Police Executive

Research Forum, 1986, p. 49.

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The Internal Role

The internally oriented role of the police chief involves managing the police organ- ization itself. One way to picture this role is to imagine the police chief viewing the organization through the systems perspective, focusing his or her attention downward on the inner workings of the department. The internal role is concerned with everything that takes place within the boundaries of the organization.

Although this internal role of the police executive certainly fits the traditional con- cept of a manager’s duties and responsibilities, some police chiefs virtually ignore the role. For example, in one 200-person, Midwestern police department, the chief was found to be almost totally preoccupied with external relations. This was partly the chief ’s fault and partly the fault of the city government administration, which required the chief to serve on citywide budget, personnel, and labor relations committees. Because the chief was actively involved in various community groups, he was well regarded both by the com- munity and his political superiors; however, he was a virtual stranger to the police depart- ment employees. The internal administration of the department was left completely to the chief ’s subordinates. If the chief had talented and loyal employees, this arrangement might have worked out reasonably well. However, in this city, the chief ’s absence resulted in the police department being mismanaged almost to the point of being not managed at all. No one really commanded the department, making sure that the system worked cor- rectly. Some individuals in the department did their best, but others did as they pleased, and no one took corrective action to keep the system operating smoothly. The result was departmental chaos.

In the following two subsections we will look at two interrelated aspects of the inter- nal role of the police executive: managing and leading.

Managing Managing can be thought of as “making sure that the job is done correctly.” Managers

work with and through other people to guide their organizations toward the achievement of goals. Managers have the authority to direct the work of others in their organizations, and they are responsible for achieving desired outcomes.

In systems terms, managing involves creating and guiding the system so that goals are attained. In the police system, managers are concerned with inputs such as money, employees, equipment, and information, as well as with outputs such as arrests, reports, and services to the public. Managers are responsible for obtaining the inputs, for design- ing and directing organizational processes, and for inspecting and improving outputs. Managers must also solicit feedback about the operation of the system, so that inputs, processes, and outputs can be evaluated, corrected, and improved in order to achieve

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organizational goals and objectives: the maximum protection of life and property and maintenance of order.

In Chapter 4, we highlighted the most important organizational processes found in police departments. We identified and discussed 30 such processes, from patrol to internal affairs to detention. These are the specific processes that police managers must establish and oversee in order to turn inputs into desired outputs.

In Chapter 5, we presented a number of principles of organization that are valuable guidelines for the police manager. The police manager cannot personally do all the work of the organization or make all of its decisions. This is particularly true of organizations such as police departments, which are open for business 24 hours a day, every day of the year. Thus, police managers must delegate authority and work throughout the organiza- tion. They must also logically organize the many tasks, processes, and subunits in their police departments. The principles presented in Chapter 5 can aid the police executive in these matters of authority delegation and task organization.

In Chapter 6, we considered the basic functions of management, the fundamental duties that all managers, including police executives, must perform. These functions are system building, planning, organizing, staffing, directing, and controlling.

Leading To a large extent, managing a police organization involves managing people. Unlike

some systems, in which inputs and processes are primarily raw materials such as machines, money, or information, police systems are labor-intensive. Police departments typically spend 75–80 percent of their budgets on employee salaries and benefits,4 and virtually all of the work of police organizations is performed by people rather than by machines.

Managing people introduces complications not encountered in managing raw mate- rials, machines, money, or information. People have feelings, ideas, and personal goals. People vary tremendously, are not always consistent, and cannot be completely under- stood. People change, and yet they frequently resist change. The so-called human element really takes management out of the realm of science and into the realm of practical affairs. In the next chapter, Chapter 8, we will look closely at some theories and concepts of individual and group behavior in police organizations, freely admitting that the extent of our knowledge about such matters is decidedly limited.

Directing and controlling employees, making sure that they know what to do and how to do it, and supervising their work to ensure that it is done correctly, are basic components of management. Successful police executives must go beyond these basic components, however, to attain lasting organizational productivity. Beyond simple adher- ence to job specifications and organizational rules, the police executive must reach out for the hearts and minds of employees. This involves leadership, an activity that is somewhat different from management (see “Managing and Leading,” Box 7.2).

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Leading involves showing the way, in most instances by example or by exhortation. Leaders help people in their organizations understand how their efforts contribute to valuable outputs. They help them picture goals worth striving for. They reinforce values that contribute to organizational success. Leaders help encourage commitment to values, ethics, integrity, principles, and goals, rather than advocating minimum performance designed simply to satisfy rules and supervisors.5

As part of the internal role of the police executive, leadership is discussed further in Chapter 10. You will find that leaders vary in personal characteristics and in leadership styles. Despite our limited understanding of what makes a good leader, the impor- tance of leadership in police organizations is evident. Police officers perform extremely sensitive duties with little supervision and a great deal of discretion. In a sense, their actual work performance is only marginally directed and controlled by the organiza- tion. In the absence of strong direction and control, the organization’s best chance for achieving desired behavior is through employee commitment to well-established pro- fessional values and goals; it is through leadership that police executives must seek that commitment.

Thus far, we have discussed leadership in terms of leading people; we have empha- sized that this dimension of leadership is an important activity for the police executive. A second dimension of leadership involves leading the organization as a whole. Earlier we described management as making sure that the job is done correctly. In this vein, leadership involves making sure that the correct job is done. To draw a similar analogy,

BOX 7.2 Managing and Leading

Chiefs must be more than mere managers performing the routine administration of a large organ-

ization. They must be dynamic leaders creating vision and purpose; driving change in an environ-

ment of flux, where resistance presents itself and must be overcome. In seeking to provide this

transformational leadership there must be a consciousness of the legal obligations placed upon

the police to maintain the “rule of law” and regulate society. Equally, there must be an awareness

of the rights of the individual based upon national and international law.

The balance which has to be achieved is a very fine one. Decision makers within the police

service are like circus performers walking a “tight rope” with people tugging at the rope. There is

a large audience viewing from different perspectives demanding a high degree of performance;

some hope for failure, others complain that the balancing act is not very good with only a few leav-

ing satisfied. The most critical point for the police is not to fall off the “wire” through loss of bal-

ance as a result of the tugging at the rope. Effective strategic thinking and planning will minimize

this risk.

Source: Norman S.J. Baxter. 2001. Policing the Line: The Development of a Theoretical Model for

the Policing of Conflict. Aldershot, England: Ashgate, pp. 137–138.

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management is involved with guiding a system so that it stays on track, but leadership is involved with laying the track in the first place.

The police executive’s leadership role, in other words, includes charting the course of the organization. The executive must give serious consideration to the organization’s goals, objectives, and priorities. There is little value in being on track if that track does not take the organization where it needs to go. This dimension of the police executive’s role, which involves leading the organization itself toward the right destination, is one that cannot be delegated and probably will not be performed at all unless given high personal priority by the executive.

The Pursuit of Excellence The purpose behind managing and leading is to make the police organization as

efficient and effective as possible and to maximize its goal attainment with whatever resources are available. In the police field, it is sometimes difficult to measure effective- ness and goal attainment.6 For example, how do you measure the current state of order maintenance? And even if you could find some indicators of how orderly a community was, how would you establish the correct or best level of orderliness? Some citizens want the community to be very quiet and controlled, while others prefer conditions that are exciting and dynamic, or even wild and crazy.

Because of such measurement problems and difficulties in divining the community’s will, police management sometimes gives up trying to attain positive goals and instead concentrates on merely avoiding certain well-known evils, especially corruption and similar embarrassing conditions.7 Inasmuch as many more police chiefs have lost their jobs due to scandal rather than ineffectiveness, this makes good sense for survival-minded police executives, but does not actually serve the community very well.

In the absence of clear and measurable goals, another alternative is to emphasize quality services. The police executive can focus on process and output, making the qual- ity of these as high as possible, trusting that the eventual outcomes will concomitantly improve. Because police departments do not have a single bottom-line quantitative criterion, such as profit, by which to finally judge their performance, it may well be wise for police executives to focus their own attention, as well as that of their employees, on maintaining high-quality services.8

As important as a focus on quality is an emphasis on excellence. Through leadership and management the police executive should reward excellence within the organization, seeking to encourage each employee to do his or her best. The accumulation of efforts can gain the organization a reputation for excellence, for performing at the highest level of achievement with limited resources.

Peters and Waterman studied American businesses and drew some conclusions about what separated the most successful companies from the rest.9 Although their research was

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based on the management of private corporations, their conclusions about the causes of organizational excellence are certainly relevant to police agencies. They are summarized below:

1. The best organizations exhibit a bias for action. Though analytical in their decision making, these organizations lean toward experimentation and willingness to take risks in seeking organizational improvements.

2. The best organizations stay close to their clientele. They emphasize client satisfaction and actually listen intently to client ideas and suggestions.

3. These organizations permit internal autonomy and entrepreneurship. They delegate authority and encourage their employees to grow and develop.

4. Excellent organizations stress productivity through people. They treat their employees with respect. They value employees as sources of ideas, not just as human machines.

5. Executives in the best organizations stay closely in touch with the organization’s work and workers. These executives avoid becoming so caught up in long-range planning and other administrative tasks that they lose touch with the organization’s basic operations. They also keep an ear to the ground to monitor the attitudes and values of employees, and take a personal leadership role in maintaining commitment to the organization’s goals and values.

6. The best organizations avoid branching off into activity sectors that are unfamiliar or very different from their basic functions and services; they stick to what they know best.

7. The most successful organizations favor lean staffs and simple structures. They keep the bulk of their people close to the action, directly involved in providing services to clients.

8. Finally, excellent organizations are both centralized and decentralized. While auton- omy is widely granted and authority widely delegated, nearly fanatical commitment to the organization’s core values is emphasized. In addition, high standards of per- formance are established, and accountability to these standards and to core values is strictly enforced.10

While these prescriptions for organizational excellence are far from startling, any sober analysis of the present condition of American law enforcement agencies would find many of them at odds with some of the eight characteristics of successful companies. Rather than demonstrating a bias for action and experimentation, for example, many police organiza- tions seem to suffer from inertia. The police field has become much more innovative over the last 40 years11 but experimentation with new work modes and methods has sometimes been met with heated criticism. To some police officials it almost verged on professional

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sacrilege to even question the efficacy, value, and utility of traditional police methods and practices, let alone introduce new tactics and strategies, such as community policing and intelligence-led policing.

Modern police organizations also often fail to keep in close touch with their clientele, although this has been one of the emphases of the community policing model.12 Though the police respond to calls for assistance, they are still reluctant to engage in dialogue with the public about the overall quality of police services and how to improve them. The 1970s-era professional model of policing emphasized that, as carefully selected and highly trained experts, professional police officers are the best judges of how the community should be policed. Such professional arrogance and defensiveness separated the police from the people and still precludes community involvement in police system improve- ment in many jurisdictions.

Ironically, modern police organizations have traditionally allowed their employees considerable autonomy; they often do their best, however, to deny it and to give exactly the opposite impression.13 Thus, most people believe that the police are closely supervised and controlled. This is not the case. Ordinary police officers perform the basic work of the organization with a great deal of autonomy and discretion. In the process they make many mistakes, but they also develop creative responses to difficult problems.

Police executives typically deny the existence of discretion, partly because they find it difficult to justify and partly because admitting its existence might bring demands for accountability in its control.14 By establishing and enforcing great numbers of rules and regulations, police executives create the impression that police officers work under strictly controlled conditions. On close examination, however, these rules can be seen to affect peripheral matters, such as when the uniform hat must be worn or whose approval of overtime is required, rather than the actual performance of police duties.

Many police agencies demonstrate little respect for the intelligence, creativity, and integrity of their employees. Police departments have traditionally been managed as pun- ishment-centered bureaucracies, with heavy emphasis on management by fear and strict discipline.15 This management style clearly indicates to employees that executives see them as lazy and incompetent. In such situations, it is not surprising that labor relations are characterized by distrust and conflict. The community policing and problem-oriented policing strategies, though, put a much higher premium on empowering police officers by recognizing their talents and encouraging initiative and creativity.16

Perhaps the single most common criticism of police executives by police officers is that executives have lost touch with police work on the street, that they do not remem- ber what it is really like out there. While sometimes this criticism is just typical of any employees complaining about their bosses, it often contains a kernel of insight. Most police management training over the last few decades has emphasized to newly-promoted executives that they are now police managers, not police officers. Many police executives are so conscious of their new management role that they avoid any real contact with actual

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police work. In the process, they often become proficient at acting like managers while gradually losing contact with the police organization’s very purpose for existing, its goals and objectives, and its everyday bread-and-butter operations. Besides leading to a loss of respect from employees, this tendency also leads to the deterioration of individual and organizational performance because executives are no longer paying close attention to what really matters. One modern antidote to this tendency is Compstat, a management accountability system that focuses commanders’ attention on crime and disorder in the community.17 Compstat is discussed in more detail in Chapter 15.

Many police departments, especially larger ones, have fallen prey to over- specialization and staff proliferation. As a result, although the patrol division may still be referred to as the “backbone” of the police department, fewer and fewer resources are devoted to patrol and other basic operations. One study a few years ago found that smaller police agencies actually kept a substantially greater proportion of their employees assigned to direct services to the public than did larger police departments.18 In large organizations, subunits are always clamoring for more people; overtime, staff, and special units tend to grow at the expense of patrol and investigations.

We have painted modern police organizations with a rather broad brush in the preceding paragraphs. As there are approximately 18,000 police agencies in the United States alone, any generalizations are tenuous at best. Excellent police departments exist, as do very poor ones. In our experience, though, most police agencies fall well short of excellence. Police executives are in a position to correct pervasive problems and improve the delivery of police services by their organizations. The characteristics of excellent companies discovered by Peters and Waterman provide some useful guidelines for police organizational improvement. Police executives should use them in conjunction with the theories and principles of management and leadership presented throughout this book.

Reinventing Government In their book Reinventing Government,19 Osborne and Gaebler argued strongly that

while there are many things wrong with the way we currently run government agencies, there are also important differences between public administration and private-sector management. They recommended a set of new principles for providing public services that embody an entrepreneurial spirit, yet recognize the public nature of government enterprises. They also reported on contemporary application of these principles in gov- ernment agencies, including police departments, all over the country. These principles, which are quite compatible with those pertaining to organizational excellence, are sum- marized below.

1. Government should steer more than row. Government’s main responsibility is to see that services are provided but not necessarily to provide all services itself. The roles

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of catalyst and facilitator can be more appropriate for government than the role of provider.

2. Government should empower citizens and communities instead of just serving them. Helping people become self-reliant has more long-term value than making people dependent. When citizens coproduce government services, those services are more effective and cheaper.

3. Government should encourage competition rather than monopoly. Competition can lead to greater efficiency, more responsiveness, and more innovation as well as fostering good morale and pride among public employees.

4. Government should be mission-driven, not rule-driven. Accomplishing mis- sions and goals is the ultimate purpose, not adhering to laws, rules, or procedures. Missions should be well understood and they should guide the operation of the agency.

5. Government should be results-oriented and focused on outcomes, not inputs. How hard the government works and how many pieces of paper it processes is not what really matters. What matters are outcomes: how well children are educated, how safe communities are, and so on.

6. Government should serve its customers, not its own bureaucracy. Government needs to measure citizen satisfaction with its services and use such information to make improvements and corrections.

7. Government should earn money as well as spend it. By charging fees and using other methods, government agencies can take in revenue to help offset their expend- iture of tax dollars. This is particularly important whenever public animosity toward taxes runs high.

8. Government should prevent as well as cure. Correcting conditions that give rise to problems is more efficient and effective than continually reacting to problems with short-term, band-aid solutions. Deal with the disease, not just the symptoms.

9. Government should decentralize and adopt more participative styles of manage- ment and leadership. Workers always know more about their jobs and about how to improve efficiency and effectiveness than staff analysts or bosses. Relying on workers and trusting them will help get them involved in reinventing government.

10. Government should leverage change through the marketplace, not just by cre- ating public programs. Through a combination of regulations and incentives, the private sector can be encouraged to contribute to the accomplishment of public missions and goals.

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Vito and Kunselman surveyed police middle managers to examine their perceptions of these principles of reinventing government.20 The researchers chose this group because middle managers would be those most likely to implement these principles, so their support would be critical. They found that the managers most supported the principles of community-owned government, customer-driven government, and decentralized gov- ernment, which the authors contend reflect community policing ideals. The principles that managers thought were the least beneficial were enterprising government, compet- itive government, and results-oriented government. The notion of reinventing govern- ment could be especially useful in organizations making the transition to community or intelligence-led policing.

The External Role

The preceding discussion focused on the police executive’s internal role of managing and leading the police organization and its members. The external role of the police chief involves managing the organization’s interaction with its environment. As open systems, police departments do things that affect their environments, and they are affected by stimuli that originate in their environments. The overall effects of these interactions can be positive or negative or both. The police chief must deal with all of these.

One aspect of the police executive’s external role is that of official organizational representative. The police executive serves as the department’s spokesperson in official communications with a variety of governmental and community groups. The executive also represents the agency at functions, on committees, and before political, private sector, and administrative bodies. In a symbolic sense, the executive epitomizes the image of the police department.

One of the most important external responsibilities of the police chief involves securing the resources necessary for effective departmental performance. The police department’s resources (employees, equipment, and funding available for performing tasks and achieving goals) are allocated by people and organizations in the department’s environment. Most of the department’s resources are made available through its budget. Budget decisions are made by elected political leaders and by bureaucrats working for executive and legislative agencies in the police organization’s environment. Some addi- tional resources may be available from other governmental agencies and from private groups and foundations. These fiscal sources are also located in the environment of the police organization. The effectiveness of any police agency depends on the availability of adequate resources and, thus, on the police executive’s ability to obtain these resources from funding organizations located in the environment of the police agency.

Another significant dimension of the police executive’s external role involves pro- tecting the police agency from environmentally generated threats. Such threats can arise

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in the form of arbitrary laws, unfair administrative decisions, constraining policies, bad publicity, public criticism, new technology, and degenerating social conditions. Any developments of this nature could threaten the safety of police officers and the ability of the organization to protect life and property and maintain order. The executive must pro- tect the police organization from all unwarranted attacks from the outside, being careful not to be overly defensive in attempting to protect the status quo and the self-interests of the department and its members. The best way to avoid knee-jerk defensiveness is for the executive to evaluate all threatening inputs in terms of their effects on the police depart- ment’s attainment of primary goals. The executive’s task is to defend the organization against genuine attacks and threats, not to resist any and all changes.

When changes do occur in the environment of a police agency, the executive’s responsibility is to monitor and analyze them so that the agency can successfully adapt. Open systems not only have environments, but they also have changing environments. The systems that survive and improve are those that continually adapt to their changing environments. Social conditions, economics, demographics, politics, values, customs, technology, laws, policies, and regulations are just a few of the characteristics of the environment that can change. Police departments today face computer crimes that were once unimaginable, are regulated by state training commissions that did not exist a few decades ago, and must abide by legal procedures that often change at a moment’s notice.

During the period from 1968 to 1980, police departments competed vigorously for federal funds granted by the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA), an agency that was created, attained annual budgets of hundreds of millions of dollars, and then was abolished, all in less than 15 years. Later, substantial federal funding was once again available starting in 1994, this time from the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (OCOPS). Since 2001, these federal funds for the enhancement of community policing have been substantially reduced and replaced by funding to support critical infrastructure protection and other homeland security-related initiatives. Police organizations that successfully adapt to changes such as these provide better services and protection to their communities. Guiding this adaptation process is a critical part of the police executive’s external role.

The external role of the police executive includes serving as the official representative of the agency, obtaining agency resources, protecting the agency against threats, and ensuring that the agency successfully adapts to its changing environment. In a nutshell, the external role involves managing the department’s interaction with its environment, a vast and complicated region that we shall explore.

Politics A major objective of both the reform era in American government and the police

professionalization movement was to insulate police departments from politics.21 This

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objective was intended to eliminate the overwhelming infusion of partisan politics in police administration, a legacy that had endured during the first century of American policing. During that period, police personnel decisions and enforcement decisions were commonly dictated by whichever political party happened to be in power, a situation that led to uneven enforcement of the law, substandard police personnel, considerable corruption, organizational chaos, and general ineffectiveness.