The Environment of Police Administration

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Part I The Nature and Setting of Police Administration

Chapter 2 The Environment of Administration

Learning Objectives

Identify several organizational environments.

Discuss how police departments respond to their organizational environments.

Distinguish why a police department must be an open system and respond to its environment.

Understand the nature of politics and how politics affects the police organization.

Identify a community’s power structure and its implications for the police manager.

Evaluate the relationship between the police and community, and understand the barriers to developing better relationships.

Discuss community policing and its ability to improve police-community relationships.

Discuss the role of the media in police administration and how the police executive can develop better relations with the media.

Understand the meaning and implication of cultural diversity within the context of policing.

The Environment of Government

Technological

Legal

Political

Economic

Demographic

Ecological

Cultural

Reactions to the Environment

The theory of uncertainty and dependence

Organizations must maintain a balance throughout changes between organizational outcomes and environmental expectations.

Organizations are dependent on the environment and citizen support.

The theory of natural selection

Some organizations react to their environments more efficiently than others.

Organizations that don’t efficiently meet environmental demands are eliminated.

Interaction between Environment and Organization

“Closed” System Model

Organizations are insulated and closed off from their environments.

“Open” System Model

Organizations exist in a complex environment they can’t shut out.

Closed Systems

Planning, decision-making, and day-to-day operations are conducted without regard to the environment.

Belief that a department’s agenda should be set by its own administrators, not the community

Results in isolationism, ineffectiveness, and sometimes failure on the part of the police department

Focus on traditionalism: how things have always been done

Reduces agency’s ability to cope with changes in the community

Open Systems

Organization is involved in dynamic interaction with environment

Reacts to changes in the environment by balancing the actions of the organization

Police and Political/Governmental Interaction

Separation of Powers

Government is divided into three branches:

Legislative

Executive

Judicial

Federalism

Three-tiered form of government providing checks and balances:

Federal

State

Local

Forms of City Government

Council-Manager Form

Separates politics from administration

Mayor-Council Form

Strong mayor configuration: mayor is primary administrator exercising control over departments

Weak mayor configuration: mayor’s power is limited, in that policy making and administration rests with the council

City Commission Form

Each member of the council also serves as the head of one or more of the city’s departments

Three Types of Municipal Executives

Misfeasors

Exert a great deal of effort to become involved and get things going

Nonfeasors

Frequently abdicate their authority, choosing to do little or nothing to avoid upsetting community leaders

Malfeasors

Promote corrupt practices or allow them to exist within government

Relationships between Municipal and Police Executives

Team Approach

Police and government executives form an active partnership and collaborate in much of the police decision and policy making

Professional Autonomy Approach

Police executive has virtual autonomy over police formulation

Police and government executives negotiate budget issues

Political Activist Approach

Governmental executives perceive themselves as the primary law enforcement executive and dictate policy to police chiefs

The Community Power Structure and the Police

The community exerts a variety of influences on its police department.

Community power: the politics, decision-making, and other processes that determine community direction

Community power structure is dependent on variables.

Pluralism: taking more than one idea, concept, or principle into account

Threats to Police—Community Relationships

Excessive force

Police corruption

Rudeness

Authoritarianism

Politics

Racial profiling or biased policing

Evolution of Community Policing

Police-community relations programs of the 1950s and 1960s

Team policing strategies of the 1970s

Increase in citizen fear of crime and drugs that began to dominate public policy formation in the 1980s

Community Disorder and Crime

Broken windows

Deterioration of neighborhood quality of life begins with minor neglect and disorder problems.

Unchecked minor problems worsen over time.

The best way to attack crime is to deal with minor problems before they become major problems.

Problem solving

Need to solve problems, not just symptoms of problems

Themes of Community Policing

The police should be accountable to the community.

They should be connected and integrated into the community on a personal level.

They should be oriented to solving general problems instead of focusing on incidents.

What Is Community Policing?

A cooperative effort to substantively solve crime and disorder problems

Community Partnerships

Efforts by the police to work with the community to solve common problems

Problem Solving

Act of identifying problems that are issues with the police and public, and attempting to solve them rather than merely respond to them

The Media: The Police Department’s Window to the World

Media characterizations of police influence public perceptions and expectations of the police.

Members of media consider themselves to be the “fourth branch of government.”

Dispensing truth and reporting the news

Constructing a “social reality” of crime and government

News may be “packaged” so that sales are maximized

Police and the media depend on each other.

Police and the media sometimes face conflict.

Managing the Police-Media Relationship

Assign a public information officer from the police to deal with the media.

Encourage reporters to participate in police ride-alongs.

Train police officers in media relations.

Give reporters free access to all departmental records that are legally available to them.

Conduct regular meetings between police and media.

Have police officials participate in broadcasts to open communications with the public.

Issue press credentials to give legitimate reporters access to information.

Train public information officer in conflict management.

Cultural Diversity

The number and population of various cultural and ethnic groups residing in a community

Vast social, political, and economic differences among the many subcultures in our society

Disadvantaged cultures view the police as an arm of the dominant class with the primary function of repressing them.

Value Statements of Community Policing

Protecting constitutional rights and democratic values.

Engaging a wide range of police resources to further the ends of crime reduction.

Engaging in crime prevention.

Developing an understanding of neighborhood crime problems and the corresponding concerns of citizens.

Conducting themselves with integrity and honesty.

Soliciting citizen input into the police enterprise.

Encouraging and developing community partnerships for improving the community.